Can't Rain All The Time
by 427-67Impala
Summary: The clock's ticking on Dean's deal & he doesn't react well when Sam tries to revisit their teenage romance. On the trail of a missing witch & her elusive patron demon, they get stranded in an abandoned house in the Maryland wilderness, where they've got no choice but to sort out their drama - except the house isn't so abandoned & that demon isn't staying hidden. Wincest, complete.
1. Chapter 1

_Title:_ Can't Rain All The Time  
><em>Author:<em> 427-67Impala  
><em>Rating: <em>M  
><em>Warnings:<em> Wincest (some underage - Sam is 14), graphic sexual content, language, violence, torture, plus a little hurt!Sam and a lot of hurt!Dean. The usual. ;)  
><em>Word count:<em> 41k in total  
><em>Setting:<em> Season 3, after _Sin City_

_Summary:_ The clock is ticking on Dean's deal, and he doesn't react well when Sam wants to revisit their secret teenage romance. Following the trail of a missing witch and her elusive patron demon gets them stranded together in an abandoned house in the Maryland wilderness, where they've got no choice but to sort out their drama - except that house isn't so abandoned, and that demon isn't staying hidden anymore.

_A/N:_ Written for the 2013 SPN/J2 Big Bang on LiveJournal, and being posted here (rapidly, I promise) chapter-by-chapter as I revise and refine some stuff ;)  
>Accompanying art and fanmix - which can be found on my LJ (meganlouise86) - was done by the lovely and talented jennybliss.<p>

As we know, Sam and Dean belong to Kripke & co. - I'm just borrowing their toys...

* * *

><p><span>Chapter 1<span>

_Boardman, Ohio_

Wednesday night isn't exactly party night in Ohio. It was only 8pm but, besides Sam, there were only a handful of people in the bar. When Dean finally turned up, the number still wouldn't even make it into double figures.

The younger Winchester sat in a corner booth, slightly away from the other patrons, a map of the northeast US and some associated weather reports in front of him, some newspaper articles open on the laptop by his left arm, and a half-empty pint glass by his right. His back was to the wall and he had as good a view of the entrances and exits as he could get. When he sat down in his spot a couple of hours earlier, he hadn't even given it a conscious thought - after a lifetime of having it drilled into him, stuff like that was second nature.

Sam had wrinkled his nose when Dean said he'd meet him at _Bridie's_, expecting another beer-stained, cigarette-singed, dusty old dive, but he had to admit, Dean had chosen well this time.

The place had a vaguely 'Irish pub' kind of feel - warm lighting showed off the rich walnut-toned bar and casually-arranged tables, with comfortable-looking matching bar stools and chairs upholstered in burgundy leather. A couple of well-used pool tables sat to one side of the room, the glass shelves of spirits behind the bar shone, and he could even see out of the windows. Not that there was much to look at on the random city street outside, but still.

Sam tapped his pen thoughtfully on the side of his glass, frowning down at the map. He finally had a nice, quiet place to work with a good selection of rock and pop songs filtering through the wall-mounted speakers, but he'd hardly gotten any work done all night. He just couldn't concentrate. He was too busy thinking about Dean, off wrapping up another one of his last-year-on-Earth nights with yet another random girl from his past.

Sam sighed and took another long pull of his half-finished beer. His problem wasn't that they were racking up massive miles traipsing all over the countryside, or that he found himself doing all the research while Dean was off enjoying himself, or even that smug, satisfied smile he got on his face for days afterwards.

Honestly, he could understand this 'greatest hits tour' thing his brother had going. That was fine. God knows the guy deserved a little fun. Sam's problem was that _he_ wasn't on his big brother's bucket list.

Sam swirled the remaining beer absently in the bottom of his glass, bottom lip caught between his teeth. Maybe they'd had something when they were teenagers. Maybe even something a little bit special.

_But that was years ago,_ Sam reminded himself. As if that was going to make it hurt less.

Sam's pity party was interrupted by the rumble of a familiar engine outside, and he turned just in time to see the big, black outline of the Impala as it cruised past. Apparently, Dean was done with whats-her-name. He had said her name at some point, Sam was sure, but he had other things on his mind. Well, one thing.

He'd been thinking about it ever since Dean had come to get him from Stanford, but he just couldn't seem to work up the courage to say he wanted to try again. And if the thought had crossed Dean's mind, he sure as hell wasn't letting on.

But now there was a ticking clock looming. Sam was running out of time, and suddenly it was all he could think about. He was even dreaming about it lately - revisiting some of the nights they'd spent together, in all their sweaty, sticky Technicolor glory. Rather than making him feel better, though, they only served to remind him what he was missing.

Dean sauntered in through the front door a couple of minutes later, smiling that wide, lazy, satisfied smile he'd been sporting a lot lately, and went straight over to the bar. Sam sighed, trying not to look as forlorn as he felt, watching the way his big brother's jacket stretched across his broad shoulders as he leaned over to rest his elbows on the bar, pulling up slightly to reveal a little more of that perfect, round backside…

Sam forced himself to look away. It wasn't like he didn't _know_ he was being ridiculous - the last time he'd been with Dean was long before he even imagined going away to Stanford, but it was still as fresh in his mind as if it happened yesterday.

_But it didn't happen yesterday,_ Sam sighed inwardly. Which was the whole problem.

"Hey there, Sammy." Dean slid smiling into the opposite side of the booth. He set one glass down by Sam's empty one, and took a long pull from the other. He had that tell-tale grin and that tousled hair and that slightly-over-caffeinated spring in his step, and absolutely no clue what his baby brother was really thinking.

"In a hurry to get started?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow and trying to look indifferent.

"I'm kinda thirsty." Dean winked. He had to take a second to clear a spot on the table top before he could put his glass down. "So, what do we got?" he asked, brighter than a condemned man had any right to be.

"Ugh." Sam groaned and rubbed tiredly at his eyes. "I don't know, man. A few weird deaths in southern PA. Maybe some demonic omens in Maryland." That wasn't just a result of tonight's half-hearted research session, either. It was just genuinely - annoyingly - quiet out there.

_Typical. Just when I need a distraction, all the monsters take a frigging holiday._

"'Maybe?'" Dean quirked an eyebrow. 'You need a break, little brother." He pushed Sam's beer closer to him, but the younger Winchester only sighed unenthusiastically. Alcohol _did_ tend to be good for dulling the pain, but he really didn't feel like putting on his "everything's fine" mask tonight. He just wasn't in the mood.

"Actually, scratch that; you need to get lucky," Dean told him, eyes sparkling.

"Dean..." Sam grumbled. His lack of enthusiasm was in danger of turning into full-blown apathy.

"I'm serious, Sam, " Dean told him. "You've gotta let off some steam."

"Why don't you let me worry about my own steam, Dean?" Sam bit back, more harshly than was necessary. He winced as he heard the words coming out of his mouth.

He hadn't intended to snap like that, but he was just so tired and frustrated, and sick of pretending. It was _exhausting_. Knowing the love of his life was going from one random girl to the next, who were doubtless falling all over themselves to jump into bed just because he'd _asked_ them, spending hours wrapped around that lean, strong body and not appreciating how lucky they were-

_Get it together, Sam._ He gave himself a mental headslap, consciously putting those thoughts out of his mind._ It's not Dean's fault he's oblivious._

"Okay, okay." Dean held his hands up, palms out, in a placating gesture. He could understand if Sam was touchy - he'd been hiding it well, but Dean knew he had to be hurting. The older Winchester had absolutely no intention of opening that can of worms and having a full-on chick-flick moment about it, but he was aware. It didn't even occur to him that his demon deal might not be the main cause of Sam's melancholy.

"Sorry, man," Sam sighed, conceding defeat and picking up his beer. He wanted Dean so much it hurt, but being near him made things... well, not better. Less terrible, maybe.

"Aw, it's okay." Dean grinned and reached out to ruffle Sam's hair, just like he knew his little brother hated. Sam grunted and slapped his hand away, bringing his glass to his lips to hide the involuntary little smile.

"Look, for once there's no monster in this town eating people's faces. We're gonna _carpe diem_ or whatever and have a night off, okay?" Dean gathered up the maps and papers and stowed them under the closed laptop. "It's time for a little R&R, dude."

"That would be _carpe noctem_, technically," Sam pointed out, smiling. Dean rolled his eyes, but smiled back.

The Winchester boys spent the next few hours drinking, talking, and laughing - just relaxing and having a good time, for once. Between all their recent family drama and epic life-and-death battles, Sam had almost forgotten how nice it was to just sit down and have a few beers with his big brother.

It was nearly midnight when the bartender finally called last drinks, and by then it was becoming obvious to Dean that Sam had enjoyed the night a little too much. He wasn't singing or anything - yet - but he'd definitely had one pint too many when Dean shepherded him out the front door and down the street towards the little carpark where the Impala waited.

"That was fun," Sam grinned, only slurring a little. He was finding it a little tricky to walk in a straight line, and Dean got in between him and the street and gave him a gentle elbow away from the curb when he strayed too close.

"It was," Dean agreed, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets as they ambled down the deserted sidewalk. It was a cool, clear summer night with no clouds to cover up the stars, but they were the only ones out walking. "You really took a shine to that microbrew they had on tap, huh?"

Sam chuckled. "Yeah, 'lil bit."

"Well, I did say you needed to blow off some steam," Dean chuckled too. Sam drifted into him again, and he gave his baby brother another good-natured little shove.

"And you were right," Sam said, still grinning. He was pleasantly surprised to realise that he actually felt pretty good. The alcohol had lifted the weight off his shoulders, however temporarily, and he felt like he could breathe for the first time in weeks. Just the lack of tension was an almost euphoric feeling in itself.

"It was good, having a night off. We need to relax more often, Sammy," Dean declared, stopping at a side street to let a car pass by. It was then that Sam leaned in and kissed him, right on those soft, silky lips.

He heard his big brother make a surprised little noise, and after a couple of shocked seconds Dean shoved him away, hard - _really_ hard. Sam took a stumbling step back and grunted as he slammed into the brick wall of the building behind him, sharp pain radiating out from the back of his shoulder.

"What the hell was that?!" Dean demanded, glaring at Sam as he wiped the back of his shaking hand across his lips. His heart was beating so hard against his chest he thought it was going to punch through.

Sam blinked, still leaning against the cold brick wall, surprised and confused at the raw anger in Dean's voice. He reached across to his shoulder with his right hand, wincing as he touched the sore spot.

"I'm sorry, Dean - but it's not like it's the first time." Sam hadn't intended to kiss him - it just sort of _happened_ - but even so, he wouldn't ever have expected this reaction.

"We've grown up since then, Sam!" Dean shot back, his voice still hard, and he saw Sam actually flinch as the words stung him. He looked crestfallen, rubbing his shoulder as he searched Dean's face for a clue to what was going on in his head. Trying to understand why his brother was literally pushing him away.

There was a little pang of guilt in Dean's chest as his heart rate started to drop, and he took a long, deep breath. "I don't want to go back there," he went on, trying to soften his words but failing miserably.

Sam's eyes filled with tears and he turned his back, holding his left arm close to his body, and started wordlessly back the way they'd come.

"Oh, come on Sam!" Dean called after him, but got no response. "You can't walk all the way back to the motel!"

He took a couple of tentative steps after his baby brother, but that was all. Sam could hear him, he knew, but the younger Winchester didn't even break stride - he evidently wanted to be alone. Dean saw him lift one hand to his face and wipe it roughly across his eyes, and that little pang of guilt stung him again as he turned and started for the carpark.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Hanover, Pennsylvania_

"So talk to me about these weird deaths," Dean said, as he pulled on his FBI suit jacket. It was the longest sentence either of them had said since they left Boardman the day before.

It had been a very long, very quiet drive from Ohio to southern Pennsylvania. They'd got into Hanover after dark, too late to do any serious digging into the mysterious deaths that had brought them to town, so they'd spent a similarly tense, quiet night in their motel room, which had then turned into this tense, quiet morning.

Sam was over by the mirrored wardrobe door, and it took him a second to answer. "Three people dead in a week," he replied, his tone neutral as he did up his tie. He didn't look over at Dean. "Two men and a woman. All relatively young and healthy, until they all dropped dead for no apparent reason."

Dean wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, that's weird. Any connection between them?"

"The two guys worked at the same office in town, but I don't know about the woman yet." Sam's voice was so calm and impassive that he might have been talking about the weather, not three unexplained deaths. As per usual, he was covering the pain with detached professionalism while Dean's coping mechanism of choice was to blatantly ignore all the emotion piling up in the space between them.

"Okay," Dean said, with more enthusiasm than he felt. "We'll divide and conquer - I'll drop you at the ME's and go check out the guys' office. Cool?"

Sam shrugged noncommittally. "Whatever you think."

Dean glanced over at him, but Sam was looking intently at the knot in his tie, deliberately avoiding eye contact.

It was a ten minute drive to the Hanover coroner's office, but neither of them said another word. Even when Dean stopped the Impala at the main entrance, the only sound was the squeaking of the door hinges as Sam got out.

He could feel Dean's eyes on him as he went up the steps of the nondescript, standard-Government-issue brick building, but he kept his eyes forward until he pushed open the heavy glass doors. He heard the Impala's engine growl and threw a quick glance over his shoulder just in time to see Dean peal away, re-joining the relatively light late-morning traffic a bit more aggressively than was necessary.

Sam winced as his left shoulder twinged, and let the door fall closed behind him. He knew this silent treatment was making his brother uncomfortable, but he just didn't have it in him to pretend everything was okay.

He took a deep, calming breath before he strode up to the reception desk, but the receptionist barely glanced at his fake FBI ID before she handed him a sign-in book and a visitor's badge and directed him to the bank of elevators in the back of the lobby. That done, she immediately turned her attention back to her computer, and Sam heard the keys clicking rapidly as she continued with her typing.

Having signed in under the alias displayed on his ID, Sam clipped the laminated, business-card-sized badge to his lapel and headed for the lifts. The building itself was J. Edgar Hoover-era, but the interior had apparently been updated relatively recently - the floor was a shining expanse of warm sandy-coloured tiles, and the walls were clad in rich coffee-coloured wood panelling that absorbed the echoes of his footsteps. Even the sandstone-coloured chairs and low, walnut side tables looked new.

The morgue itself was in the basement of the building, only a couple of floors below the lobby, and the elevator doors opened on a corridor that looked - and smelled - like it belonged in a hospital. There was a small arrow-shaped sign on the wall opposite the elevator that proclaimed the autopsy room to be down the hall to the left, so Sam followed it.

This floor wasn't as well-lit as the lobby, but it wasn't dim either - there were no windows, obviously, but there were fluorescent lights set into the ceiling every eight or ten feet. The walls were painted a light blue, with wide wooden rails running along at waist height, punctuated by the occasional door. They were painted a darker blue with black room numbers emblazoned in the middle at eye level, and those narrow, A4-sized windows set slightly off to the left.

All in all, it was the nicest morgue he'd been to in a while. Despite all his drama, the thought that he was at a point where it was normal to critique the interior decor of morgues made Sam smile.

He was only walking for about 20 seconds before he came across a set of double doors, with a long glass window in the wall next to them. The Venetian blind was half-closed, but Sam could see the first in a row of stainless steel tables, and the name plate on the doors read 'Autopsy'.

He straightened his jacket and knocked sharply on the door before he pushed it open and stepped in. He was immediately assaulted by the smell of pine disinfectant, which didn't quite cover the underlying odour of decomposing flesh, and he reflexively wrinkled his nose as he looked around.

The space was bigger than a lot of autopsy rooms he'd seen. It ran another fifteen metres along the side of the corridor, at least, and there was a row of four stainless steel tables down the middle. The walls were bright white tiles three-quarters of the way to the ceiling, with a strip of light blue painted drywall above that, and the floor was a blue-grey linoleum that managed to compliment the paint and all the stainless steel at the same time.

"Can I help you?"

Sam turned to his right to find a bespectacled, middle-aged man standing in the doorway to a dim little office - evidently, this was the coroner. He was about 5'10", wearing an off-white lab coat over olive green scrubs and white cross trainers, and he didn't look thrilled at this intrusion of a living soul into his morgue.

"Agent Hammett, FBI," Sam told him, briefly flipping open his ID before tucking it back into his jacket.

"You're here about the three DBs from that ad agency?" the coroner asked, before Sam could get another word out.

"Uh - yeah," Sam replied, blinking. He hadn't known they were all from the same agency, but still. "How did you know?"

The coroner grunted and went over to the wall opposite the entrance, where a grid of three-foot-square stainless steel doors were set into the wall, three high and five wide. "Three people, all dead for no apparent reason? Figured it was just a matter of time before PD called you lot in," he sniffed, checking the small white labels on a couple of doors before he opened three in the bottom row.

"They all came in over four days last week," the coroner continued, businesslike, pulling three trays out of the open fridges as Sam came over to join him. "The woman was first, then male victim number one the following day, and the second male a couple of days after that." He pointed out each body as he spoke.

Sam leaned in for a closer look, and was immediately struck by the absence of things to look _at_. The victims were all relatively young, barely into their thirties, and looked to be in good physical shape - apart from the fact they were dead.

"What killed them?" he asked. He was used to seeing an obvious cause of death, but here he there was nothing. No lacerations, teeth marks or trauma of any kind on the pale, dead flesh - not even a hangnail.

The coroner didn't answer right away, and when Sam looked up his mouth was set in a hard line as he stared down the corpse of the young woman. It was obvious he didn't have an answer for that.

"Doc?" Sam pressed, and the coroner threw him an annoyed glance.

"Well, _Agent_, apart from the fact they're dead, all three victims were in perfect health: no heart attacks, no strokes - no pathology of any kind," he said, his tone clipped. He evidently wasn't used to not saying 'I don't know', and didn't enjoy it one little bit.

Sam asked a few more routine questions, but it was painfully obvious that medical science wasn't going to help them solve this one, so he was happy to get out of the morgue and leave the coroner to it. The guy seemed happier down there by himself, anyway.

While he made his way back up to the land of the living, Sam mulled over what could have killed three people and left no physical trace. Witchcraft was the frontrunner, he figured, but beyond that he was no more enlightened than the coroner.

He stifled a yawn as he walked out to stand on the steps of the building. He checked his phone, but there was no news from Dean - it hadn't taken long to get that non-information out of the coroner, though, and he was probably still checking out the victims' office.

Sam sighed and looked around him. It was a mild, sunny summer day, but he didn't particularly feel like killing time on the steps of the coroner's office. That wasn't very FBI-like, anyway. So he sent Dean a text to let him know he'd come up empty, and flagged down a passing cab for a ride back to the motel.

It was nice to have the place to himself for a while, actually. He shrugged out of his jacket and kicked off his shoes, then sat on the couch and flicked on the TV. There wasn't much on, though, and it didn't take long for his eyelids to start getting heavy.

Between John's death, Dean's deal and the demonic fallout from their monumental fuck-up at the Devil's Gate in Wyoming, he had plenty to keep him up at night. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a good night's sleep…

Sam grabbed a spare pillow off the floor, still sitting where Dean had tossed it last night, and settled down for a nap.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Portland, Maine_  
><em>February 1998<em>

It was a cold, windy night outside, and the Winchester boys were languishing in yet another random, unremarkable, two-decades-out-of-style motel room. They were alone, as usual - John wasn't going to be back till the following day, weather permitting. He was still two states away wrapping up the loose ends on a poltergeist.

The motel wasn't far from the water, and Mother Nature was getting a head start on the winter storm that was supposed to be coming in tomorrow. The wind was bone-chilling cold and already blowing at a steady 50mph, so they were stuck inside with the ancient heater cranked as high as it would go.

Despite the fact he was only just eighteen, Dean had managed to lay his hands on a bottle of Jack Daniel's and was considerately sharing it with his baby brother, who wasn't even fifteen. They'd been through about a third of the bottle and were sprawled out on the couch with the TV on, but the weather interfered with the signal so much the random 80s action movie was almost more snow than film.

"You don't date, Sammy," Dean said suddenly, when the hero and his damsel in distress disappeared into a blizzard of static again.

"When've I got time for that?" Sam sniffed. Between school and hunting and training and sleep, there was precious little time for anything. "Plus, we only move on anyway." He heaved a sigh and grabbed the bottle for another swig.

"True," Dean said thoughtfully, giving a conciliatory nod. "So, don't date. Take it one night at a time."

Sam snorted. "What, like you do?"

"I'm a shining example of all the fun that can be had with no strings attached."

"I've seen you crawl back in the morning after, and 'shining' is not the word I'd use," Sam told him drily, looking back to the TV as Dean chuckled. He couldn't argue with that. It took a few hours' sleep, a shower and a handful of aspirin to even approach 'normal'.

There was a pause as a moment of clear picture came through the static, just long enough to watch a building blow up, but then the movie disappeared into snow again. "What do you tell them you do?" Sam asked, genuinely curious.

"There's not usually that much talking," Dean said pointedly, taking the bottle back.

Sam shrugged, eyes still on the snowy screen. "I like to talk."

"God, don't I know it," Dean teased.

Sam glanced over, but resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at his big brother. "Girls like to talk, too," he pointed out.

"Then give them something else to do with their mouth, Sammy!"

Now it was Sam's turn to chuckle and Dean looked over at him with a little smile on his lips. "It_ is_ girls, right…?" he asked after a short pause, eyebrows raised suggestively.

Sam frowned for a second, confused, and then his eyes suddenly widened as realisation dawned on him. "Oh God - yes, Dean!" He grabbed the bottle, trying not to blush. That was even true, mostly, but Sam didn't know what to worry about first - the fact that it actually wasn't _just_ girls, or that his social life was so abysmal that his brother thought he might be gay.

"Cause, you know, I figured that might explain why you never seem to get friendly with them," Dean went on. "It'd be okay, you know - if it _wasn't_ girls," he added, and took another drink. He was trying to keep his voice light, but he was only half-joking. Sufficiently uninhibited by the bourbon, he was actually seriously trying to ask the question.

Sam said nothing, just watching as Dean ran his tongue across those pouty, bee-stung lips to catch a stray drop of bourbon. "Have you ever thought about it?" he asked, before he knew he was speaking.

"What, another guy?" Dean asked, eyebrows raised.

"Yeah," Sam replied. He heard his voice crack a little, and winced.

Dean paused, chewing on his bottom lip, and Sam turned a little further to study him. He was staring at the snowy picture on the TV, brow furrowed and gnawing so hard on that lip that it was getting rosy red.

"You _have_," Sam gasped, trying not to sound incredulous.

Dean stared at the TV for a couple of seconds longer. "Yeah. Couple of times," he admitted, with a shrug. "Was stoned the first time," he added, casually.

_Just the first time?_ Sam couldn't believe what he was hearing. "But you're not…?" He waved his hand around in a vague 'you know' kind of gesture, hoping Dean couldn't see the way it was trembling.

Dean shook his head with a chuckle. "Nah. Girls are my thing. It's just a curse, being this pretty," he said, and smiled widely at Sam. "So what about you, baby brother? Ever gone there?"

Sam shrugged, immediately looking away. It wouldn't change anything if he told Dean he was interested in other guys - as evidenced by what his big brother had just told him - but knowing that and actually saying the words were two completely different things.

"Come on, Sammy - you're not allowed to start holding out on me now," Dean admonished him good-naturedly. "I showed you mine, now you've gotta show me yours."

"Well, there is one guy I'd like to get to know better…" Sam started, but trailed off, avoiding Dean's eyes. "He has no clue I'm interested." He felt a little pang in his chest. Every word of it was absolutely, painfully true.

"You sound disappointed." Dean sat up a little straighter. This was all news to him.

Sam heaved a sigh as he stared out the window, watching the trees whipping around in the wind and darkness outside. "It's just… I'm curious, you know?" he said, with a shrug. It just so happened that most of that curiosity centred around Dean, and had done for a while now, but there was no way in hell he was going to say _that_ out loud.

"Yeah, I know." Dean smiled. If there was one thing Sam was, it was curious.

They took another couple of silent drinks each, lost in their thoughts, and suddenly most of the bottle was gone. Sam stole a look at Dean, sitting down the other end of the couch from him, face unreadable as he stared at the TV screen.

Now that he knew Dean had been with other guys, he just couldn't get the image out of his head. He'd always imagined his brother being on top, and the thought of Dean holding that other guy down - kissing _his_ neck, massaging _his_ back… if he was honest, it made him jealous.

_But brothers don't do that sort of thing,_ he reminded himself. _Tell Dean you've dreamed about him fucking you senseless and you'll probably wind up with a black eye._

Sam sighed and settled into the corner of the couch, one slender leg hanging over the edge and an arm thrown up behind his head, eyes on the snowy screen. Somebody was shooting at someone else with some ridiculously oversized automatic weapon, but the picture was so bad he couldn't quite tell who was who.

Next thing he knew, Dean's unbelievably soft, silky lips were suddenly pressed against his. And not just a quick peck - Dean was kissing him. Arms around him, pushing him back into the couch, _kissing him_.

He made a pleased little sound in the back of his throat and let Dean push him down into the corner of the couch, relishing the hot, wet, bourbon-soaked heat of his mouth as he leaned in to press his hard, lean body against Sam's, his hands-

There was a _thump_ as the bottle of Jack fell out of Dean's hand and onto the floor, and then, just as suddenly as it started, Dean pulled away.

Sam opened his eyes and blinked a few times, as if waking up from a dream, and found Dean looking down at him. His eyes were wide, those lips parted in a gasp of shock as if he'd only just realised what he was doing.

"Fuck, Sam - I'm sorry." Dean was on his feet before Sam could react. He sat in the corner of the couch looking up at his big brother, standing a few feet away and as white as a sheet, and Sam couldn't tell if he was more horrified at what he'd just done or the fact that he obviously wanted to do it again.

"Dean-" Sam started to get up, but paused when Dean stepped back a couple of paces, trying to keep the distance between them.

"Sam, you're my little brother. We can't." Then the older Winchester turned and escaped into his bedroom, pulling the door shut behind him.

Sam was on his feet and after him almost instantly. He was sure he wanted this and, with the courage bestowed on him by half a bottle of Jack, he wasn't about to let the moment pass him by. He opened the door to find Dean sitting on the end of the bed in the dark, with his head in his hands.

"Dean?" Sam asked, and turned on the dim, grimy overhead light. Dean looked up at him, but even then he didn't quite meet his baby brother's eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said, again, and looked away.

"Don't be," Sam said, but Dean didn't reply. "You want it as much as I do," Sam told him, with a lot more conviction than he felt.

Dean considered that for a long moment, lower lip caught between his teeth. "You're not even fifteen yet. You don't know what you want," he said, sharp edges on his words. "You don't know what _I_ want, either."

"You started this," Sam said, uncertainty creeping into his voice as a frown creased his forehead. Had he read this wrong? He knew what he wanted, without a doubt, and he was pretty sure about Dean. At least, kinda pretty sure…

"I know, I know," Dean groaned, and scrubbed a hand over his face. He was acutely aware that he was the one that opened Pandora's Box here, and he wanted to dive in. _So much._ But Sam was his baby brother, and they _couldn't_.

"So what's the problem?" Sam asked, unable to hide his disappointment. Dean didn't answer him - he didn't know what to say.

As he stood there in the silence, Sam started to think he'd made a mistake. His eyes searched Dean's face for a clue as to what was going on in his head, but he just sat there for what seemed like forever, absolutely still with his eyes on the floor.

Sam turned to leave, tears stinging his eyes, but before he could take two steps Dean reached out and caught him by the wrist. He wordlessly pulled Sam down to sit over his lap, and the older Winchester's hands came to rest on his hips like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Dean leaned in to give Sam a soft kiss on the cheek, lips slightly parted, only closing them when they touched his skin. It was the gentlest, most feather-light kiss Sam could imagine.

"I'm going to Hell for this," Dean sighed, and glanced apprehensively skyward. Sam chuckled breathlessly, wiping at his eyes with his sleeve.

"What's so funny?" Dean asked, a smile spreading across his face.

"Nothing," Sam told him softly, as Dean's arms wound around his back and hugged him closer. "I just really thought you were going to let me leave."

"I should've," Dean sighed, one hand rubbing rhythmically up and down Sam's back.

"So why didn't you?"

Dean shrugged a shoulder. "Just couldn't."

"I'm not stupid, Dean. I know we're not supposed to do this," Sam told him softly.

Dean gave him another soft kiss, this time on the mouth, and he felt Dean's hand move up under his shirt. It rubbed gently up and down the smooth, sensitive skin of his left side, and his brother's hands were softer and gentler than he expected. Dean paused to drag his t-shirt off, then pulled Sam's up over his head and tossed it onto the floor too.

"You ever done this before?" Dean asked softly, stroking the back of his knuckles gently up and down Sam's abdomen.

Sam shrugged a little. "Not all the way," he replied, slowly.

"Not even with a girl?" Dean raised his eyebrows, eyes sparkling just a little.

Sam shook his head. Now, half-naked and sitting astride his big brother, he was suddenly feeling very self-conscious about it - he knew for a fact that Dean hadn't been a virgin since Sam was in elementary school.

Dean leaned forward and gave him a soft kiss. "Don't worry, okay? It's really not that hard."

A smile tugged at the corner of Sam's mouth, but he didn't say anything. He just ran one hand over the crotch of Dean's jeans.

"Yeah, funny." Dean kissed him again and Sam felt the warmth of his skin against his chest as his big brother pulled him in closer.

He reached a hand up to touch and it was all warm, smooth skin over hard ridges of muscle that shifted under his fingers as Dean moved, deepening the kiss. He tasted good, like bourbon and the cheeseburgers they had for dinner - just how Sam thought he should.

Sam grunted in surprise when Dean suddenly pushed him gently down into the pillows of the unmade bed. "If you wanna stop, just tell me," he breathed, and reached down to undo Sam's jeans. They joined the t-shirts on the floor, and then Dean set about stripping off his own jeans to reveal the slim, athletic physique beneath.

He was a lot better-built and more defined than Sam expected, covered in layers of lean muscle under expanses of smooth, fair skin, but his eyes only really widened when Dean took off his boxers. He was hard - _very_ hard - and although it was gorgeous and maybe a little more generously proportioned than average, like the rest of him, considering he was about to let Dean put that inside him Sam thought it looked _enormous_.

Dean saw all that play out on his face, and knelt beside him to give him a kiss. "I'm not gonna hurt you," he whispered, running a hand back over Sam's hair and pushing stray strands out of his face. Sam murmured an acknowledgement, and Dean gave him one last kiss on the lips before he placed a few more on his jawline, down his neck and across his collarbone.

Sam felt the wet heat of Dean's mouth on his nipple, tongue flicking, and let out a short gasp as Dean bit gently down. He laid a line of kisses down Sam's sternum and then ran his tongue over the gentle definition of his abs, one hand rubbing his baby brother's side as he laid a meandering line of long, slow kisses below his navel.

Dean paused there, rubbing one hand gently over the soft, sensitive skin at the top of Sam's right thigh and on up towards his hip, just watching, in case he didn't want this as much as he thought he did. But that little smile stayed on his lips and he stayed relaxed, just enjoying Dean's hands on him.

He kept his eyes on Sam's face as, still rubbing at his hip, he wrapped the other hand gently around his little brother's cock. It was hot and hard and velvety-smooth, and Sam's mouth dropped open in a breathy little gasp as he felt Dean's hand close around him.

Even as Dean started to slowly work his hand up and back and Sam's eyes flicked downwards to watch, neither of them could really believe they were actually doing this. Sam hadn't ever expected Dean would want it, and Dean had never expected Sam would let him.

Dean let one hand rest on Sam's thigh and laid the other flat on his pelvis, right at the base of that hard, leaking cock. Then he leaned down and took Sam into his mouth as deep as he could go, to the point where the hot, smooth head touched the back of his throat...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"Sam."

Sam grunted and tried to turn over, away from the annoying voice, but there was something in his way. He opened one bleary eye and came face-to-face with the back of the couch.

"Sam," the voice said again. It was Dean's voice, and from the tone of it he was repeating himself.

Sam reluctantly turned back towards him, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. He frowned slightly when he saw the undisguised amusement on Dean's face.

"What-" Sam started to sit up, and immediately realised what Dean found so humorous. He groaned and pulled the pillow over the obvious erection that tented the front of his pants, and Dean dissolved into laughter.

"You really do need to let off some steam," Dean chuckled, as Sam sat there staring daggers at him and trying not to blush.

"You done?" He tried to stay impassive, but it was hard with Dean smiling like that, his whole face lit up and his eyes sparkling…

"For now." Dean smiled widely at him.

Sam sat up straighter and rubbed at his gritty eyes with one hand as he held onto the pillow with the other. "So? Did you find out anything useful?" he asked, pointedly changing the subject.

"All three vics worked at an advertising firm downtown called 'Kinnetic'." Dean perched on the edge of the table, still looking far too amused for Sam's taste. "The guys were _Mad Men_ ad exec types, but victim number one, the woman, was a secretary - specifically, victim number two's."

"I think they prefer 'administrative professional' these days," Sam told him, drily.

"Yeah, whatever." Dean waved a dismissive hand. "Point is, all three worked in the same office, literally down the hall from one another. The two execs were involved in landing some big ad contract not long back. I got the impression they really pulled that one out of thin air - _like no-one ever expected it to happen_," he said, pointedly.

"Sounds witchy," Sam commented, interest piqued. Facts were starting to stack up, and things were starting to make a little more sense.

"Does, doesn't it? And that's not even the good part." Dean's eyes were all but glittering. Sam waited for him to continue, but he didn't - he was waiting for Sam to ask the question.

"And what's the good part…?" he obliged, with a sigh.

Dean beamed at him. "Victim number three, the other ad exec -_ his_ secretary hasn't been seen since her boss bit it."

A little smile touched the corners of Sam's mouth. "Well, that's not suspicious at all."

Dean waved a scrap of paper grasped between two fingers. "Just so happens I have Moneypenny's address." He glanced at the pillow in Sam's lap. "You wanna go now, or do you need a minute to finish up…?"

Dean saw it coming, but still barely managed to avoid the pillow when Sam abruptly hurled it at his head.

* * *

><p><em>The fic is complete, I promise! I'm just polishing as I upload. Stay tuned!<em>


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The apartment of Justine Taylor, secretary and suspected witch, was located in downtown Hanover - in fact, only a ten minute walk from the ad agency.

"Nice place," Sam observed, adjusting his tie as they exited the elevator on the sixth floor. Apparently there was good money in advertising - the place was clean and modern, with wooden floors and brushed aluminium fixtures and lots of natural light, thanks to what seemed like acres of windows and skylights. He didn't feel at all out of place in his suit and tie.

"Doesn't seem like a witchy kind of building," Dean agreed. Although, as far as he was concerned, witches should stick to damp cellars and ramshackle cottages in the middle of the woods.

He checked the address on his slip of paper, then the small brushed aluminium numbers on a couple of nearby doors. There were only a couple in view - the apartments behind them must've been huge, judging by the space between doors.

"You've got some serious prejudice going on there, you know," Sam observed, following him as he started down the hall to their left. Their shoes didn't make a sound on the thick, slate-grey carpet.

"They're monsters, Sam," Dean sniffed, silently counting off apartment numbers as they went. "When they stop sacrificing Thumper & Bambi and slipping people hex bags, then we'll talk," he added, coming to a stop outside apartment number 607. He tucked the address into his pocket and rapped sharply on the door, ignoring the smile on Sam's face.

There was no answer so Dean knocked again, harder this time. "FBI, Miss Taylor!" he called for good measure, but there was still nothing. Dean looked questioningly across at Sam, who shrugged.

"Maybe she's out shopping?" he suggested, keeping his voice low.

Dean gave him a dubious look and turned back to the door. He scanned the empty hallway in both directions and was just getting his lockpick kit out of his jacket when Sam reached across him and tried the doorknob - to their considerable surprise, it yielded and the door swung open without a sound.

"Well that's never good," Dean whispered, drawing his gun at the same time Sam did. The older Winchester went in first, with his little brother following close behind.

As it turned out, Sam was right - the apartment was huge. Just the main living space was the size of their entire motel room, with polished hardwood floors and an expensive-looking leather lounge suite situated in front of a plasma screen they would've been hard-pressed to shoehorn into the Impala's trunk.

There were a couple of doors to Sam's left, slightly ajar to reveal a small laundry/storage room and what appeared to be a study. The kitchen sat gleaming in one corner of the living space, all stainless steel appliances and black stone benchtops, and two enormous windows in the back wall let in stacks of natural light that bounced off the snow white walls. Even on an overcast day like today, there was no need to turn on a light switch.

Dean broke off to clear the two rooms to the right of the main living space - a bathroom and the master bedroom - while Sam cleared the laundry room and study to the left. It was immediately obvious there was no-one (and nothing) there, and he put away his gun with a sigh.

Now that he was sure there was nothing lying in wait to rip off his face, he took a closer look at his surroundings. There were a few old, worn leather-bound books on the shelves in the study that he recognised from Bobby's collection. They had Latin titles that he couldn't read, but he remembered what they contained - devil's traps, exorcisms, and anti-demon protection spells.

Sam was pretty sure he knew what was going on at this point, and he turned and went back out into the main living space to take a fresh look around at the details. It only took him a few seconds to confirm what he suspected. The entire apartment was slathered in anti-demon wards. _Covered_ in them.

There were various anti-demon and protection sigils from at least half a dozen belief systems carved into the wooden window frames and drawn on the back of the blinds, with 'wind chimes' made of cats-eye shells and animal bones and anti-demon herbs in pots on the small balcony outside. When Sam pulled up the decorative rug in the middle of the room, there was even a 5-foot-wide devil's trap scrawled in black permanent marker on the polished floorboards.

"Well, Justine, you were obviously scared of something," Sam mused out loud, frowning as he looked around at the witch's warding efforts.

Before he got a chance to poke around some more, there was a sigh from the master bedroom. "Found Moneypenny," Dean called, and Sam left the demon-proofing to join him.

Wrinkling his nose at the unmistakeable smell of decomposing flesh, Sam found his brother standing at the foot of Justine Taylor's unmade bed. The alleged witch was sprawled out across her comforter, on her back with arms and legs poised as if she'd fallen backwards onto it, still in her work clothes - scarlet blouse, with a black skirt and high heels. The dark colours contrasted starkly with her deathly-pale skin.

"Looks like she's been here a couple of days," Dean observed, tucking his Colt back into the waistband of his pants.

"Looks like very unnatural causes, too," Sam said, leaning over to examine the body more closely. The dark, needle-prick bruising of petechial haemorrhaging was visible on the whites of her wide, staring eyes as well as the skin around them, and there were broad, dusky ligature marks on her throat.

"This is different from the other three bodies, Dean," Sam said, with a frown. "Looks like she was strangled, but these bruises weren't made by someone's hands. Maybe a wide, soft garrotte of some sort." He paused, thinking it over as he glanced at the plastic water bottle sitting on the nightstand. It had a crucifix hanging around it - holy water, he supposed.

"You know, I bet whatever forces a demon uses to choke you from a distance don't leave sharp edges."

Dean sighed. "So, first it was witch thing, and now it's a demon thing too?" he grumbled. "That's awesome."

Sam shrugged, straightening up. "She was actively trying to ward off demons, Dean - there are charms and sigils all over this place. It didn't help her, apparently, but she must've done it for a reason."

Dean went around the other side of the bed and pulled his sleeve down over his hand before he cracked the door of the closet. He whistled, pulling both doors wide open. "Well, there's definite witchcraft afoot at least," he confirmed. "I guess we know how they pulled that deal out of thin air."

Sam left Justine's body and went around to see for himself. As he passed Dean took a couple of steps away, under the guise of checking her nightstand, and Sam frowned. The bedroom was big enough that there was plenty of room for him and Dean between the bed and the wall - more than the width of the entire double-door closet - but it didn't escape his notice that Dean made absolutely sure to avoid any threat of physical contact.

_Way to make it awkward, Sam._

The younger Winchester sighed and stepped up closer to the closet - there was indeed an altar stored in there, sitting on the cream-carpeted floor. It was a low, wooden table about two feet square, covered in your typical candles, exotic-looking sigils, and what looked like various bits and pieces of unfortunate furry critters.

He pushed the doors shut with an elbow and turned to check out the only other point of entry to the bedroom - the window. It was covered in demon-proofing, scratched into the frame and drawn on the glass in red permanent marker, and still locked with no sign of forced entry from the fire escape outside. He glanced briefly back over at Dean, but he had the nightstand drawer open and was picking through it.

Dean wrinkled his nose, poking at a bowl full of small, charred bones in the drawer that he really, _really_ hoped were from animals, then picked up a small photo album shoved right in the back of the drawer. He opened it, being sure to keep his sleeves between the album and his fingers, and his eyes widened as he flicked through it.

"I wonder what made her turn on them," Sam mused into the silence, leaning down to get a better look at the street below. It was a quiet, unremarkable little one-way alley, and he knew no-one down there was likely to have noticed anything. Even the building opposite was a dead end - it was an old warehouse currently being renovated and turned into high-end apartments like the one he stood in now, and all the windows were covered with black plastic.

"I think I can answer that." Dean held up the album to show Sam the photos inside. All of them featured Justine, in bed, with a handful of different guys - including one Dean recognised as her boss. The photos were all taken in her bedroom, and the high angle suggested the camera was hidden in the bookshelf between the window and the far wall.

"Maybe the other secretary found out about this, so Hermione here had to shut her up," Dean offered, looking through some more of the pictures. "Maybe she told victim number two, so he gets it in the neck. Then perhaps this one's boss works out what's going on, and she has to take care of him too?"

"Yeah, sex complicates everything," Sam agreed casually, turning to the bookcase. Dean narrowed his eyes, but Sam continued before he could get a word out. "Hey, witches get their power from making deals with demons, right?" he asked, scanning the upper shelves of the bookcase about a foot above his head, looking for anything that could be concealing a camera. Maybe they'd get lucky and find it was recording when Justine met her maker.

"Yeah." Dean ran a finger through a smudge of sulphur at the base of the bedside lamp, frowning.

Sam reached up and pulled down a small wooden trinket box with a half-inch hole drilled in the side, positioned to point down at the bed. It was just big enough to hide a small video camera, but naturally, it was empty now. "Maybe this witch's demon saw the trail of bodies she was leaving, knew someone would come hunting, and decided to tie up the loose ends?" he suggested.

"It is hard for the witch to lead us to the demon if she's dead," Dean agreed thoughtfully, rubbing the grainy sulphur powder between his thumb and forefinger as a train of thought started to coalesce. "Hey, what was that you said about demonic omens?"

"What?" Sam asked, as he wiped down the box and set it back up on the shelf.

"When we were in Broadman, looking for a job," Dean reminded him. "You said 'maybe some demonic omens in Maryland'._ Where_ in Maryland?"

"Ummm… Gloucester, or Manchester, or something I think." Sam screwed up his nose and thought for a second. "No, no, wait -_ Westminster_."

A hard little smile spread across Dean's face and he held up his hand, showing Sam the yellow sulphurous smudges on his fingertips. "Westminster's just across the border. No more than half an hour from here."

Sam immediately grasped what he was saying. "Even with all the new demons lurking out there, that's a pretty big coincidence."

Dean was already getting the car keys out of his pocket. "I don't believe in coincidences, Sammy."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

_Westminster, Maryland_

There was a summer thunderstorm brewing when Dean pulled the Impala into a bar on the outskirts of Westminster. There was no rain yet, just lightning that lit up the whole bar every few minutes, but it promised to be a ripper - the thunder was getting closer and more frequent, and the lights flickered every few minutes. The bartender even had candles and matches sitting on the bar, ready to go.

It was already late when they rolled into town, and between that and the weather they should really have headed straight for a motel, but Dean really wanted a drink and a burger. It was exhausting, this not-talking-about-what's-really-going-on thing, and after all the driving they'd been doing the last few days his patience was worn paper-thin. Honestly, he was almost glad when Sam left him alone at their table to play a few games of pool.

The older Winchester wasn't very good company at the moment - Dean knew Sam was dealing with a lot, but so was he, dammit. He was putting a good face on it, but he could frigging hear the clock ticking on his deal and it was getting hard to ignore the tension between him and his baby brother.

Dean wasn't stupid. He knew exactly what Sam wanted. He wasn't sure why the kid had waited till now - they'd been on the road for ages already - but he knew.

Dean sighed, swirling the last couple of inches of beer around in the bottom of his glass. He loved his brother more than life itself, but he didn't have a lot of that life left. He didn't want to spend it tense and awkward and walking on eggshells, and now he'd had his burger and a couple of beers, he had an idea how he might let off some of that steam.

He had his eye on a pair of young women over the other side of the bar: one blonde, one brunette. The brunette was leaning on the bar, her long, chestnut hair falling down her back like a chocolate waterfall, and she had a truly exceptional ass.

_Stop thinking about your brother and go get yourself some of that._

He turned to glance at Sam just as the younger Winchester leaned over the pool table. He took a second to get set, sucked in a slow, deep breath, and took his shot on the exhale just as if he were firing a gun. There was a sharp crack as the cue ball hit its target, and a blue ball shot off across the table and dropped into the corner pocket diagonally opposite Sam.

Dean turned back, a smile touching his lips. The kid was hustling, by the looks of it - Dean wasn't sure _how_ exactly, considering the rate at which he'd been ploughing through the bottle of Jack behind the bar. But hey, if he could make a little cash…

Sam was indeed hustling pool and even winning a little, which was a minor miracle - in between shots, all he wanted to do was watch Dean. His big brother was watching the two women by the bar, he knew. Sam had noticed them too - the brunette in particular had a spectacular ass - but his eyes kept going back to Dean. His black jacket stretched tight across his broad shoulders, and the curve of his denim-covered backside stood out maddeningly as he leaned forward against the table.

Whether it was plain of fatigue or an excess of Jack, Sam wasn't covering well and the young, blonde guy he was hustling noticed. "He your boyfriend or something?" he drawled, lips drawn back into a smug little smile.

"No." Sam turned his gaze onto his opposition and seriously considered smacking the expression off his face.

"'Cause you spend an awful lot of time staring at his ass."

Dean meanwhile, happy that Sam was gainfully occupied, downed the last of his beer and settled his gaze on the women in the corner. He was just starting to rise up from his chair when his phone rang.

"Oh, really?" he groaned, and pulled his phone out of the front pocket of his jeans. He glanced at the caller ID, and sighed when he saw the name. No matter how good that brunette's ass was, he couldn't hit the 'ignore' button on Bobby.

He hit 'answer' instead and brought the phone to his ear. "Hey, Bobby."

_"Dean. How you boys doing?"_

Dean looked wistfully across the bar the two women by the bar and sighed. "Yeah, we're good," he lied. "You?"

_"Peachy,"_ Bobby replied, his voice as dry as the Sahara. If he sensed Dean was lying, he didn't let on.

"Still burning the candle at both ends?" Dean asked. When they'd left Bobby, he was spending every spare second he had with his nose buried in any book he could find, trying to get a handle on exactly what they'd let out of the Devil's Gate in Wyoming.

_"Not like anyone else's gonna do it. Speaking of, you boys run into anything with black eyes lately?"_

"This new job of ours is starting to head off down kind of a demonic tangent, but other than that-"

Bobby interrupted as if Dean hadn't been speaking._ "What new job?"_

"Started off as a few suspicious deaths in south PA - witchy-looking stuff. But turns out the witch got ganked too, and me and Sam are thinking her demon had something to do with it. We're in Westminster, Maryland tracking it."

_"Damn demons."_ Dean could hear the concern in Bobby's voice. _"You two be careful."_

"We're always careful," Dean assured him.

_"_Sam_ is always careful,"_ Bobby corrected. _"Lately, you're just itching to sacrifice yourself."_

Dean sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "Bobby-" he started, but he was interrupted by a yell and an almighty crash from amongst the pool tables behind him. Dean stopped and turned to look instinctively, as did every other patron in the bar.

There was a guy laid out on one of the tables, the remains of its long, glass-panelled lightshade scattered on the green felt around him as if he'd been lifted up and thrown through the light to land on the concrete slab of the table. Dean knew - from experience - that sort of thing_ hurt_.

From the shadows left by the busted light, there was another yell and the _whoosh_ of a pool cue being swung, but no corresponding _thwack_ of it finding its target. Instead there came the distinctive sound of a fist hitting flesh, followed immediately by a yelp of pain, and the clatter of a pool cue falling to the floorboards. That was closely followed by the heavy _thump_ of a body following suit.

The guy on the table started to stir, and actually got to sit up before he was pole-axed again by a vicious right hook from the unidentified assailant in the shadows. He fell back onto the table with a grunt of pain, bleeding from a split lip and a few other cuts most likely made by the broken glass he was laying in, and Dean could see growing dark spots on the grass-green felt under him. The guy was clearly hurt pretty badly.

_"Dean!"_ Bobby was shouting into his end of the phone - he could evidently hear the action in the background.

"Um - sorry, Bobby, a fight just broke out in this bar here," Dean told him, eyes still on the fracas in front of him when he was nearly blinded by a flash of white lightning that lit up the entire bar. For half a second, he saw the shadowy scene in front of him illuminated like it was daylight.

There was one guy laying prone on the floor, out cold and bleeding from a cut under his rapidly-swelling left eye. He was maybe in his early thirties and with short dark hair, and there was a pool cue lying next to him - evidently, he was the one that had been swinging it around like a baseball bat.

The unfortunate guy on the pool table looked to be a few years younger, with longer blonde hair and a lily-white complexion - under all the blood, anyway. He had a nasty black eye, cuts of various sizes all over his face and arms, and that split lip. He was only semi-conscious by the looks of it, but that wasn't stopping the third guy - the one doing all the damage - from whaling on him some more.

It took Dean a second to register that the third guy was Sam. He stood at the edge of the pool table with a fistful of his victim's straw-coloured locks, actually holding the guy's upper body off the table so he could keep landing those full-blooded, hammering right crosses.

"I'm gonna have to call you back." Dean mashed at the 'end' button on his phone as he was shoving it into his pocket and made a beeline for Sam, but he hit the guy another three times before he could get there.

"Sam!" Dean hissed, blocking Sam's next punch with his arm. He growled and tried to pull it free, but Dean locked his elbow around Sam's and held him. Up close and personal like this, the smell of bourbon all over his baby brother hit him like a sledgehammer.

"Sam! Let him go!" Dean grabbed Sam's left wrist with his free hand and pulled him free of his death-grip on the blonde guy's hair.

"Let me go, Dean!" Sam shoved him and made another grab for the guy, but Dean put his body between them and caught him in a literal bear hug.

"Stop it! We gotta go," Dean told him, in an urgent whisper. Over Sam's right shoulder, he could see the bartender picking up the phone. "Out! Go!" he repeated, and gave Sam another hard shove towards the door. He didn't want to, and kept glaring daggers at the blonde guy over his shoulder, but he went.

"No need to call the cops. I'm getting him outta here," Dean called hopefully as he grabbed a handful of Sam's jacket and dragged him outside into the warm, humid night. He yanked the door shut behind them and Sam stumbled as they made for the Impala, but Dean caught him by the sleeve before he could actually trip.

"What's wrong with you?" Dean demanded, shoving Sam in the shoulder and almost sending him sprawling again.

Sam shrugged, leaning heavily against the rear quarter panel of the Impala. "Seemed like a good idea at the time." He grimaced, touching his hand gingerly to a rapidly-coalescing bruise over his left cheekbone.

"For God's sake, are you still pissed about Ohio?" Dean pulled the keys from his pocket and opened the passenger side rear door, glancing nervously across the roof to the front door of the bar. It remained shut - no avenging drunks were following. Yet.

"What, when you said you didn't want me?"

Dean could hear the hurt in Sam's voice, and it stung him. "I never said that," he protested, but he didn't sound convincing even to his own ears and it was met with a derisive snort from Sam. He ignored that wrenched the door open, giving Sam a shove in that direction.

"Yeah, well, whatever you said sure sounded a helluva lot_ like_ 'I don't want you'," he shot back, but let Dean shepherd him into the back seat.

Dean slammed the door and stalked around to the driver's side, fuming silently. He wanted to set Sam straight, but anything else he had to say right now would probably only make this mess worse, so he kept his mouth firmly shut.

They drove wordlessly around town as Dean searched for a motel with a vacancy, Sam sprawled out across the back seat with one arm thrown over his eyes. The bourbon was starting to catch up with him, and the punch he'd taken from the blonde guy at the very beginning had kicked off a headache. He was so out of it he almost didn't hear the rumbling thunder outside.

There was one helluva thunderstorm closing in on Westminster, and although Dean didn't really want to be driving around town in the dark and the imminent pouring rain, there wasn't much of a choice - it was too hard to sleep in the Impala with rain pounding on the metal body. But apparently nobody else wanted to be on the road in the approaching weather either, because everything was booked out.

After fifteen minutes of driving in ever-increasing circles, Dean finally came across what felt like the only motel in town with a vacancy. It wasn't exactly the Ritz - in fact, it charged by the hour - but beggars can't be choosers. He parked the Impala and wordlessly left Sam laying in the back seat while he went in to rent a room.

Sam listened to Dean's footfalls fading on the asphalt, wondering how the night had gone so completely and utterly wrong. "What the hell was I thinking?" he groaned, staring out the window at the clouds that obscured the moon and stars. Every few breaths, they lit up with internal lightning and he could hear not-so-distant rumbling thunder.

"God, what possessed you to kiss him _now_, after all these years?" he berated himself, and kicked half-heartedly at the door trim in frustration. He'd had a bit to drink, sure, but it wasn't like he was so drunk he didn't know what he was doing…

If Sam was honest, he knew exactly why he'd done it. He didn't have years to waste watching Dean from a distance. Not anymore. Unless something changed drastically, he had about ten months until he was going to have to watch Hellhounds drag his brother down into the Pit, and just the thought made his stomach start tying itself in knots.

Sam's train of thought was interrupted by Dean yanking the Impala's door open. He got in and shoved the key into the ignition, almost-tangible waves of anger pouring off him. Sam frowned, but didn't say anything - he hadn't exactly been in a good mood when he left, but his outlook had apparently deteriorated.

The younger Winchester kept playing possum while Dean made the short (and rather aggressive) drive across the carpark to their room, but didn't make a move until the car had come to a stop and Dean set the handbrake. He shoved his door open and got out, going around to the trunk, and Sam got out to check out their surroundings.

The rooms in this particular motel were in need of some work - Sam knew that before they even got to their door. The doors and window frames were painted Prussian blue, or at least they had been a decade or so earlier. It had weathered badly though, and faded a few shades. When he looked up and down the row of doors around them, about a third of the exterior lights were out. Add that to the rampant cobwebs and the cigarette butts and snack wrappers that littered the concrete floor, and he didn't hold out much hope for the interior.

Dean unlocked the door, and swore under his breath as he had to all but shoulder-block it open. He left his brother standing at the threshold and stalked inside, but it wasn't until he hit the lights that Sam understood the sudden downward spiral in his mood. Dean threw the key onto the coffee table, then went to dump his duffel on the bed - the one_ double_ bed.

Sam sighed. _Yeah, this isn't going to be awkward at all._

"Just so you know, before I took the room I seriously considered sleeping in the car," Dean told him, without turning around.

"You still can," Sam bit back, shoving the door closed behind him. It scraped and squeaked into the out-of-square frame, and it took him a couple of shots to get the lock to engage.

There was a snort of derision from Dean as he unscrewed the top of the salt can. "Yeah, well, I wouldn't be going alone and it's not like I'm going to let you sleep in the car after your Rocky impersonation back there."

"I was winning, you know." Honestly, Sam thought his big brother was being somewhat overdramatic. He sat heavily in one of the two overly-soft armchairs and watched Dean lay down salt lines at all the doors and windows - standard procedure when they were dealing with demons.

"Oh, I know," Dean told him. "And you were about to do some serious damage to the other guy. We didn't need you getting nicked for assault after you turned Joe Random's lights out." That was a nice pun, and Dean couldn't help but smile briefly to himself. "What did that guy _do_ to you, anyway?"

Sam stayed quiet. He looked down at his hands and frowned, flexing his fingers. The knuckles were skinned and bruised, some of them still slowly leaking blood. He didn't remember giving out _that_ much of a beating…

Dean paused and turned to look at Sam. "Sam, you don't get to lose it like that and then not tell me _why_."

"He was an ass, okay?" Sam didn't look up from his hands. "He was running his mouth, and I shut it for him."

Dean didn't for a second believe that was all there was to it, but he was too tired to press. "Fine." He dropped the salt can by the door with a_ clang_ and grabbed some things from his duffel, then went wordlessly into the bathroom and shut the door.

The bathroom lit up occasionally with a bolt of lightning, followed by faint rumbles of distant thunder - the storm was moving incredibly slowly outside, lumbering along to eventually run right over the top of them. Dean started the shower, but didn't get undressed. He stood in front of the mirror instead, hands on the edge of the cold porcelain sink, and stared pensively at his reflection. It looked about as worn out as he felt.

There was another flash, and Dean thought about that bolt of lightning illuminating the fight in the bar. Sam beating on that guy with no mercy, taking full-blooded swings and really doing damage. _Meaning_ it.

Dean sighed and shrugged out of his jacket as his reflection started to disappear under a layer of condensation. Sam was a peaceful guy, generally - that much bourbon and the fight that followed were both totally out of character for him. He must be really hurting to drink like that and to have so short a fuse. And, despite his earlier lies, Dean knew exactly what was eating at him. He solved mysteries for a living - it wasn't like he didn't_ know_ Sam wanted to revisit their teenage fling.

_That wasn't just a fling,_ he reminded himself, undoing his shirt and hanging it on the doorknob with his jacket. It had been more than that. Of all the girls (and the few boys) he'd slept with, it brought a wry little smile to Dean's lips that Sam was the only one he'd ever been able to be absolutely, completely honest with.

He stripped off his jeans and underwear and climbed into the shower, considering his options as he looked down the taps. He could take a short, cold shower and be freezing cold when he got into bed, or he could have a long, hot shower and spend a little time 'cleaning the pipes'…

_The longer you leave it, the more likely it is all that bourbon will've knocked Sammy out..._

Dean sighed and turned up the hot water.

Fifteen minutes later - clean, warm and suitably relieved - Dean crept out of the bathroom and over to the bed and climbed in gingerly beside Sam's still form. The younger Winchester was laying on his side facing the wall, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts under the sheet and light blanket. It was a warm enough night that he'd thrown the rest of the bedcovers onto the floor.

Dean wasn't sure if he was actually asleep or just playing possum, but Sam didn't stir. Even in the near-darkness, Dean could see the purpling bruise on the back of his left shoulder from the other night in Ohio. He didn't mean to shove him that hard - really, he hadn't meant to shove him at all. It was a reflex, but he still felt bad about it. He'd never pushed Sam away, _ever_, and the wounded look on his face had hurt Dean just as much.

He lay there in the dark, staring at Sam's tense shoulders and chewing on his bottom lip. The kid didn't understand what he'd done wrong, he knew, and Dean was getting pretty sure he'd fucked this up. Badly. But chances were the truth would fuck the kid up even more, so Dean planned on keeping it to himself.

* * *

><p><em>Two chapters down, five to go. :)<em>


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Sam was already up by the time Dean woke. In fact, when he opened his eyes at about 8:30am, after about four hours' sleep, Dean couldn't see his baby brother anywhere.

He pushed himself up with a groan, vertical enough that he could see the little kitchen table - just as he suspected, his keys were gone. There was no coffeemaker in this blue-tinged Hell of a motel, and he hoped that wherever Sam was he was getting coffee. Despite yesterday's drama, he was confident the kid would bring some back.

"At least he will if he knows what's good for him," Dean grumbled as he hauled himself out of bed. He rubbed at his eyes with one hand and shambled over to his duffel, by the front door where he'd dumped it last night, to get something to wear. He pulled on a fresh tee, followed by yesterday's flannel shirt - he'd only been wearing it since Ohio, and in Dean's opinion that still made it clean.

Outside, the threat of last night's clouds had finally come to pass. It was raining so hard it sounded more like hail on the corrugated iron porch outside, punctuated with regular flashes of lightning and deep, rumbling thunder. He hated this kind of weather. It was dark and claustrophobic and depressing, and the comfortable heat of the day before had transformed into a pervasive chill.

"As if I don't have enough things in my life to be bummed-out about," he complained, to no-one in particular. He pulled on his jeans, followed by some thick, warm socks, and looked wistfully over at the kitchen bench. Or, more accurately, at the lack of a coffeemaker.

There was another clap of thunder right over the top of the motel that rattled the single, solitary picture on the wall, and he sighed. He needed something to occupy his mind, but it was too early to drink. Even for him.

He bent down to grab his shoes, but paused when he saw the corner of a small black book sticking out of his duffel. As soon as they got clear of Elizabethville he'd replaced the little red book that 'Casey' buried under tons of stonework with a new, black one. He'd knocked it loose while he'd been bad-temperedly rifling through it for fresh clothes, and it gave him an idea.

When Sam got back to the motel room shortly thereafter - with coffee _and_ breakfast - he found Dean sitting at the green Formica kitchen table with some papers and the small black book in front of him. It was currently open to the pages that contained the Winchesters' exorcism of choice: the Rituale Romanum.

"Hey," Sam said, somewhat stiffly, shoving the door shut behind him.

"Hey," Dean replied, but he didn't look up. He was bent over a collection of little pieces of white paper, which Sam recognised as palm-sized cue cards; there was a black ballpoint pen in his hand, and he was covering them slowly and deliberately with clear block letters.

Sam put a tall cardboard cup of coffee and a white paper bag - containing, predictably, some God-awful breakfast burrito monstrosity - on the table on Dean's left and watched over his shoulder as he wrote.

"What are you doing?" he asked, after a few seconds. He could see perfectly well _what_ Dean was doing, but he was a little unclear as to _why_.

"Well, we're neck-deep in demons again and I'm sick of carrying the book around," Dean replied evenly, without looking up. Apparently Sam was going for the 'pretend nothing happened' coping strategy, and Dean was fine with that. He could play that game till the Hellhounds came home.

"And cue cards are better...?" Sam arched an eyebrow, sitting across from his brother with his own coffee and paper bag. The only difference was that his held a whole-wheat breakfast bagel with egg, tomato and avocado. You know, actual _food_.

"Yes, Sam, cue cards are better." Dean frowned, finishing the sentence and placing the card on top of a few other completed cards. "At least for those of us that haven't memorised the entire Rituale Romanum," he added, under his breath. Sam ignored the jibe and concentrated on his bagel, watching as Dean stacked his cue cards off to the side of the table and pulled his paper bag across in front of him.

"You know, cue cards aren't going to help with your pronunciation," Sam pointed out, and Dean glared at him. But, mollified by the aroma of egg and bacon that wafted from the open bag in front of him, the older Winchester didn't bite back.

"So, while you were doing your homework, I actually found out something kind of interesting," Sam said conversationally, as Dean took a monstrous bite of his burrito. "I was talking to a Neighbourhood Watch type in the diner, and it turns out there's an abandoned house on the outskirts of town. Owners were foreclosed on, and it's been empty for months, but lately there's been lights on and music playing."

"So let's check it out," Dean said - or at least, attempted to, around a mouthful of burrito.

_o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o_

It had been raining hard all night, and on the way out to the not-so-abandoned house they crossed a couple of creeks that were now raging torrents, doing their best Colorado River impersonation. The second one was actually lapping at the beams of the steel bridge, barely a foot from the Impala's tyres.

"I thought you were just supposed to get electrical storms with demons," Dean grumbled, wiping at the condensation on the inside of the Impala's windscreen with his sleeve. The short run from the room to the car got them just wet enough to fog up the windows, and the Impala's demister just wasn't quite up to the task.

"This isn't a localised random storm, Dean. This front has been moving through the state for days, dumping tons of rain." Sam paused, peering out his window at the raging torrent below. The muddy brown water was flowing fast, bringing sticks, branches and myriad varieties of other rubbish and debris with it.

"You know, if it keeps raining like this, we're not going to be able to get back," he pointed out.

"Well I guess we'd better make it quick, then," Dean told him. "If this demon knows we're onto it, it's not going to just wait around for a break in the weather, Sam."

Sam shrugged and sat back in his seat. Dean was right, he knew - they couldn't just let the demon run around loose while they waited for the weather to clear, but the Impala was _not _an off-road vehicle. If the creek below got up over the road, they weren't going anywhere.

After the bridge the house wasn't much further down the road, and they saw it before they even got close. It was an old, WWI-era mansion set on the highest ground for miles - a double-storey weatherboard building that had once been painted white, but was now more of a dirty cream. A porch spanned the width of the façade, with a balcony above that was just as big, all sprinkled liberally with art deco detailing and gables dotted along the shingled roof.

Dean rolled through the derelict wrought-iron gates with the engine off, coasting to a stop at the bottom of the hill in a bend of the serpentine driveway where the unkempt, overgrown gardens would hide them from the house. Rivulets of rainwater cut channels through the weed-infested gravel as they sat in silence for a minute, listening to the Impala's engine ticking and the rain falling on the body.

When he was sure there wasn't a demonic welcoming party about to descend on them, Dean leaned over and pulled two guns out of the glove box - his own stainless steel Colt M1911A1 with engraved slide and ivory grips, and the older Colt revolver. He shoved the revolver into Sam's hand, ignoring the look his baby brother gave him.

"Dean-" Sam started, but his big brother interrupted.

"They probably think you were in with Yellow Eyes. Take the damn gun." Dean pressed it harder into his palm, and Sam took it wordlessly. This wasn't the time or place to have an argument.

"You go 'round the back and I'll go through the front," Dean went on, eyes on his own weapon and the worked the slide and checked the chamber. He put the safety on and both Winchesters climbed out of the car, pressing the doors gently shut behind them so as not to make a sound.

From the Impala's parking spot the house was just a 20-second jog up the driveway, and they were hidden almost the whole way by the rain and overgrown brush. They moved almost silently, the wet, compacted gravel hardly making a sound under their feet. When they got to the top of the driveway Sam broke off to go around the back, just as he was told, while Dean continued right up to the front door.

He slowed down a little when he got close to the foot of the stairs, keeping his eyes open as he went carefully up the old, worn wooden steps and onto the porch, avoiding anything that looked like it might squeak. He paused for a second for a deep, calming breath, then brought his gun up and tried the knob on the huge old front door - to his surprise, it turned easily and the door swung inward on surprisingly well-oiled hinges, barely making a sound.

Dean winced. _A mysteriously-open door, like at the beginning of every horror movie ever. Awesome._

There was still no sign of that demonic welcoming party, so he tried put horror movies out of his mind and crept inside into the entrance hall. It was a huge, square space almost the size of their entire motel room, with red-brown polished floorboards and pale, geometrically-patterned wallpaper. The room rose the full two storeys above him with a big, ornate window over the door, a grand, curving staircase in front of him leading up to the second floor, and two big, arched doorways on either side that led into adjoining rooms.

Dean picked the right-hand doorway, which took him through into what looked like a sitting room. There was an impressive stone fireplace in the wall opposite the doorway, a picture window opening up out onto the porch, and comfortable, vintage furniture set out on a couple of authentic-looking Persian rugs. That and the warm-toned and slightly floral wallpaper gave the room a kind of cosy, homely feel that Dean actually kind of liked.

The hardwood floor continued under his feet and he trod carefully, trying to minimise the noise of his footfalls. He heard only the odd scraping noise from the back of the house, right where Sam should have been, and he was just starting to relax and think no-one else was home when there was a feminine chuckle from the doorway behind him.

_Shit._

Dean closed his eyes briefly, suddenly wishing he hadn't been all selfless and valiant and given the Colt to Sam. He took a breath and spun, raising his automatic in front of him and found two young women standing just inside the doorway from the entrance hall.

"You're looking for us, huh?" The brunette smiled, looking at him like a cat looks at a mouse. They took a few steps closer, one either side of him, their eyes slowly turning inky black.

It took Dean a second to recognise them. He hadn't spent a lot of time looking at their _faces_, exactly, but he was sure: these were the blonde and the brunette he'd been admiring the night before in the bar.

Dean let out a disappointed sigh. This was a shame, because the girls those two hell-bitches were wearing were gorgeous. Blondie was about 5'8", maybe, but Brownie was a few inches taller and they both looked amazing in their skinny jeans, heels and figure-hugging tops. Dean had to admit, demons generally had pretty good taste in meatsuits.

The blonde smirked as they flanked him, her glossy black boots clicking hollowly on the floorboards. "The famous Dean Winchester, up close and personal," she drawled, evidently not impressed.

"I thought he'd be taller," the brunette agreed, wearing a sneer of her own as she looked him up and down.

With their attention fixed on Dean, they didn't notice Sam appear in the doorway behind them. Dean saw his baby brother immediately, but he kept his gaze firmly on Blondie and Brownie. If he let himself focus on Sam, he'd give the game away and they'd both be dead before they knew what had happened. If they were lucky.

Dean flashed his teeth in a tense smile, trying to keep an eye on both of them at once. "Wish I could say you two skanks were something special. Anything with black eyes seems to have the impression it's sex on a stick."

"I saw the way you were looking at us last night, Dean." The blonde gave him a knowing little smile, and Dean did his best to keep his poker face. Blondie there wasn't wrong - he had, in fact, been just seconds away from sauntering over and trying to get one (or, preferably, both) of them back to a motel room when Bobby called. But he wasn't about to tell _them_ that.

"Would've been quite a night, too." Brownie shook her head in mock sadness. "You know, before we slowly ripped you up into red confetti." Her glossy red lips turned up in a sharp smile, revealing a mouthful of very white teeth.

Behind the two black-eyed women, Sam was almost in position. He held the Colt in his right hand, and it was trained on Blondie. He was trying to edge around behind them to get a clear angle where he wouldn't hit his big brother - the gun would kill Dean as effectively as it would the two demons.

"So do women still interest you, then?" Blondie asked impishly, perfectly shaped eyebrows slightly raised. Beside her, Brownie let out a delighted little gasp.

"Oh, that's right! I almost forgot! You'd prefer to be screwing that Sasquatch little brother of yours again, wouldn't you?" she grinned, and Blondie laughed.

"You could have brought him with you!" she trilled, and Brownie dissolved into giggles too.

Dean just stared at them. He didn't have a retort ready for that one. He'd never come across a demon that knew about him and Sam before, and he wasn't sure how to respond.

"Well, I guess we can't blame you. After Daddy's little meltdown, anyone would be gun-shy." Brownie grinned again. It looked more like an expression you might see on a shark.

That sent Dean's heart rate up through the roof, and it was taking all his concentration not to look at Sam with the Colt pointed at Blondie. Dean wished he'd hurry the fuck up and _shoot_ them - preferably, starting with Brownie. She seemed like she might actually tear him limb from limb if she got the chance. Plus, she was mouthy.

It seemed to take him an eternity, but when Sam eventually fired, it sounded like a crack of thunder right there in the room with them. There was white muzzle flash that briefly illuminated the dim room, a bloodcurdling scream from Brownie, and Dean threw himself to his right, getting out of Sam's line of fire. He hit the floor behind the couch, just catching the edge of a Persian rug that cushioned his fall ever so slightly, but as it turned out he needn't have bothered.

Sam had only winged Brownie with the bullet, and before he could get another shot off, Blondie flicked a wrist and knocked him back into the wall beside the doorway. The Colt went flying, skittering across the floor towards the picture window, well out of reach of both Winchesters. Not that Sam was in any state to make a grab at it anyway - he lay in a heap at the foot of the wall, semi-conscious, with an actual, visible dent in the floral wall above him where he'd hit it.

Blondie and Brownie paused to check out her wound, a bloody, ragged tear in the flesh high on her left upper arm, and Dean took that opportunity to whip out his brand new cue cards. He jumped back to his feet and held them up in front of him, where he could see the two demons in his peripheral vision, and started to read.

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus; omnis satanica potest-"

He was cut off mid-sentence by Blondie letting out an enraged scream and flinging him into the wall. His shoulder slammed painfully into the edge of a window frame and his gun and cue cards went flying as he slid down to sit on the floor. Dean watched the small pieces of paper flutter down to rest on the floorboards a few feet away - face _down_, naturally - but he glared defiantly at the demons and continued.

"- potestas, omnis incur... incursion infern... infernal..."

_Shit._

Dean closed his eyes, wracking his brain for the next part of the ritual, but he felt it slipping through his fingers. It was like trying to hold onto a handful of Jell-O - the more he grabbed at it, the less he could grasp.

_Come on, Dean - before this hell-bitch rips your liver out through your nose…!_

He swore quietly under his breath and sagged back against the wall. He had no idea what was supposed to be next.

"Cue cards? Really?" The brunette demon laughed. Dean glanced over at Sam, willing his baby brother to get up and get the Colt or finish the exorcism or _something_. But Sam still wasn't moving.

Dean forced a little smile and looked back at the demons, trying to hide the rising fear as he struggled to his feet. "What can I say? I'm a terrible student." He glanced wistfully at the cards scattered on the floor. "Although I'm starting to think Sam was right - I really do need to memorise that."

"Oh, you're not gonna get the chance, sugar." Blondie smiled coldly and curled her hand slowly into a fist, slamming Dean back into the wall and cutting off his air as effectively as if she had her hands wrapped around his throat. He clutched reflexively at the invisible force wrapped around his neck as he struggled for breath, dark spots beginning to dance around his vision and his heartbeat pounding in his ears so loudly that he almost couldn't hear her gloating.

"I mean, think about it," she crowed. "Because you couldn't say a few dozen words of Latin, I'm gonna-"

There was another flash of light and crack of thunder and she stopped mid-sentence, eyes going impossibly wide as her mouth formed a little 'O' of surprise. Her invisible hold on Dean evaporated as orange internal lightning reverberated through her body and she fell to the ground, twitching.

Dean took a long, gasping breath and sank to the floor, clutching at his neck. Just because the hellspawn hadn't actually physically _touched_ him didn't mean he wasn't going to have bruises.

He looked up to see Sam standing behind the dead demon, just off to her left, with the Colt held in his outstretched hand and a wisp of grey smoke curling up from the barrel. He'd hit Blondie in the upper back, leaving a neat hole in her blue halter top just left of her spine, but before he could turn and aim the weapon at Brownie she screeched like a banshee and took off through the entryway and out the front door.

"Took you long enough!" Dean gasped, and Sam grasped his outstretched hand and dragged him to his feet without bothering to reply. He headed straight off after the demon, disappearing through the arched doorway into the front entrance hall. Dean took a moment to collect his wits, plus his cue cards and his gun, and then followed suit.

When he got out onto the porch Sam was waiting for him at the top of the steps, hands shoved into his pockets and looking out into the wind-blown, misting rain at the tree-line of the nearby woods. The implication was obvious - the demon had vanished, and the older Winchester swore under his breath and set the safety on his gun before he tucked it back into the waistband of his jeans.

"One is better than none," Sam offered, noticing his big brother's displeasure and attempting to point out a silver lining.

"Yeah, but _all_ of them is better than that," Dean sniffed, as he stepped past Sam and started down the stairs.

Sam caught up with a few jogging steps, but Dean didn't say anything further and the Winchester boys walked back down the driveway to the car under a cloud of heavy, oppressive silence. The only noise was the slight crunch of their boots on the wet gravel. Sam snuck a sideways look at his brother, but Dean was walking ahead slightly, hands shoved into his pockets and his eyes fixed firmly on the ground.

"So, is there anything you want to tell me?" Sam asked, about halfway down the hill. Dean stayed pointedly quiet.

"I heard what that demon said," Sam continued, regardless. The fact that Dean didn't want to start a conversation made him think that was exactly what he needed to do. There was something here - he just _knew_ it.

Dean ignored him, searching through his jacket pockets for the car keys.

"Dean, stop. Look at me." There was a jingling noise, and Dean looked back to see Sam standing there with the keys in his hand.

"How the-" Dean started, but stopped himself. He sighed, throwing a brief glare at his baby brother. "I swear, I don't know how you're so good at the whole pickpocket thing. I mean, your fingers are the size of frigging bananas."

"Dean." Sam just stood there, feet planted in the wet gravel, and looked back at him. "What did she mean, Dad had a meltdown? You always told me he never knew."

Dean took a long, slow breath and looked up at the sky. It was still grey and ominous, if not pelting rain just then, but no obliging bolt of lightning appeared to smite him and end this nightmare of a conversation.

"What do you want me to say, Sam? Demons lie." He snatched the keys from Sam, quick as a snake, then turned his back and headed for the driver's door of the Impala.

Sam didn't try to stop him. He sighed and took a long look skywards himself, then went around to the passenger side as Dean slid in behind the wheel. He was just doing up his seatbelt when Dean turned the key in the ignition, but instead of the smooth, throaty purr of the Impala's V8, there was only the harsh cranking of the starter motor. The engine didn't even _try_ to turn over.

"What the…" Dean frowned and tried the key again. He gave the accelerator pedal a couple of pumps for good measure, but there wasn't a breath of life from the engine.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Dean muttered as he yanked the Impala's hood release and shoved the door open, and Sam watched through the windscreen as he stalked around to the front end and pulled the hood up. There was a pause, then an impressive string of curses and a spray of gravel as Dean kicked a divot into the driveway.

Sam couldn't see what the drama was, but when he got out and went cautiously up front the problem was immediately obvious even to his untrained eye. The distributor cap was broken into pieces, and the eight leads that usually ran from it to the spark plugs hung down in a tangled, frayed mess. No amount of Dean's usual MacGyver-ing was going to help that. The Impala was dead in the water.

Dean took a step back from the car and ran his hands back through his hair, lacing them behind his head, and his gaze moved from the engine bay up to Sam. There was murder in his eyes.

"I'm gonna kill that bitch," he said, simply. There was a poignant rumble of distant thunder just then, but Dean evidently didn't appreciate the humour and Sam valued his life too much to point it out.

While Dean pulled his phone from his pocket and set about getting a tow truck to haul his baby back into town, Sam just sat on the front end of the car with his arms crossed over his chest and watched. He was still preoccupied with what the brunette demon said about John's 'little meltdown', and he was sure Dean was hiding something - a _lot_, he suspected. A lot more than "demons lie", anyway.

He frowned, watching as Dean paced back and forth along a six-foot stretch of the driveway like a caged lion, occasionally running an irritated hand back over his hair. There must be some serious trauma there, for Dean to keep the secret like this even when he knew Sam knew there _was_ one. It was obvious, just from the look on his face when the brunette demon had been talking. It was the same one he had when they talked about Mary in any depth, or when anyone mentioned John. The look he got when he was trying not to let the world see he was hurting.

But what could be hurting him about their relationship - or, rather, lack of one?

_Yeah, what could Dean _possibly_ have to be tense about? _Sam sighed. Apart from all the obvious drama that comes from one brother selling his soul for the other, after having been saved himself when their father fell on Yellow Eyes' sword…

_He's already got _so much_ trauma rattling around in there. What could be worse than all the stuff he's already told me?_

Sam's depressing little train of thought was interrupted when Dean stalked back over to the car. "It's gonna be at least an hour, even if the road doesn't flood," he grumbled, shoving his phone in his pocket. "And if it rains again, they won't be able to get out here at all till the creek drops and that last bridge is clear."

"I hope those demons did some grocery shopping." Sam glanced up at the sky with what he figured was a reasonable amount of trepidation. He wasn't looking forward to spending any length of time with Dean in this mood.

Dean ignored that and stood beside him, leaning in to remove the remains of the black Bakelite distributor cap and wantonly flinging the pieces out onto the driveway behind him. His shirt and jacket pulled up at the back, revealing some of that lean, muscular lower back above the waistband of his jeans and just a hint of the black boxers he wore underneath, and Sam couldn't help but notice.

"You right there, Sam?"

Sam snapped out of his reverie to find Dean looking pointedly at him. Now it was his turn to avoid eye contact - he coughed and looked away, pushing his hair back as a sudden gust of cold wind whipped it into his face.

"Yeah, whatever." Dean sighed and squinted up at the sky, feeling a few small, beginner raindrops falling on his face. "Looks like we better get inside." He got up and barely waited for Sam to do the same before he shut the hood of the Impala.

Dean jogged back up the driveway to the front porch of the house and Sam hustled after him, getting undercover just as the rain really started to pelt down. They stood silently under the porch, and Dean winced as the rain started coming down in windblown sheets. If it kept on like this for much longer they weren't going anywhere, distributor cap or not, and he did _not_ want to spend God-knows how long cooped up in this house with Sam and their drama.

Sam could see it written all over his face. Deep-and-meaningfuls were never Dean's strong suit, but the elephant in the room was starting to turn into more of a mammoth, and there just wasn't room for that if they were going to be stuck in this house together.

"Dean, I really think we need to talk about this." Sam tried again, but the older Winchester didn't reply - he just stared out at the rain, completely ignoring what his little brother was saying.

"We should search this place and see if we can find out where that hell-bitch is going. She's probably got other witches." Dean abruptly turned and went back inside, leaving Sam on the porch by himself.

"_Dean_…!" Sam watched him go, exasperated. It never ceased to amaze him how Dean could just cut off a conversation like that, but he got reluctantly to his feet and went inside out of the wind.

Dean all but tore the upper storey of the house apart searching for any clue as to where the demon might have gone, while Sam poked around half-heartedly downstairs. He found some basic food in the kitchen, plus magazines and newspapers and a whole stack of mail addressed to the previous owners, but that was about all.

It looked like whoever's house this was had been about halfway through moving - they'd taken all the important stuff with them, but left the rest for later. All the furniture was still here, but most of the knick-knacks, pictures, books and things were missing.

When Dean was done with his search, he found Sam waiting on the bench seat in the picture window of the sitting room. He gave his little brother a glance, but went straight past him and back out onto the porch. He grimaced when he saw the pouring rain - it was worse now, if that was possible.

"No maps of the Pacific north-east with red crosses marking the locations of other witches?" Sam asked, appearing in the front doorway. Dean threw a glare at him, but bit back the smartass comment on the tip of his tongue.

"We're not going anywhere," Sam observed, coming to stand beside his big brother. His whole posture was tense, but Dean pretended not to notice.

"Yeah," he admitted, gruffly. "We should probably get the stuff out of the car."

Sam nodded and produced two golf umbrellas. "Found these in a closet."

"That's literally the first thing that's gone our way today," Dean said, without a trace of a smile.

Sam didn't even try to hide his annoyance as he shoved an umbrella into Dean's outstretched hand and stomped down the stairs. "I _did_ kill a demon earlier, remember."

"I'm aware," Dean said tersely, as he glared at Sam's back, "but it's cancelled out by the one that got away and_ tore apart my fucking car_!" He grabbed the umbrella and stalked out into the storm after his baby brother.

The Winchester boys ransacked the Impala, grabbing their duffels and most of the contents of the trunk, and then set about sealing up the ground floor of the house. Sam went around and sprayed devil's traps at all the external doors and under all the windows, and on the landing at the top of the stairs to seal off the top storey, while Dean laid down salt lines.

The demons had managed to keep the water and electricity on, so when he was done Sam made some coffee. By the time it was ready, Dean had a nice tinder fire going in the sitting room and the place was starting to warm up. He was kneeling at the hearth, slowly feeding the fire bigger and bigger pieces of wood, and he didn't look up when Sam came to stand next to him.

"Can we not fight while we're trapped in a demon's house overnight?" Sam said, simply, and held out a cup of steaming, fragrant black coffee.

Dean hesitated for a second, but he took the coffee. He took a tentative sip, and a look of surprise came over his face - the coffee was _good_. "The hellspawn had good taste," he commented, and took another, longer drink.

"There's also some cereal, kettle chips, M&M's… all sorts of stuff, actually," Sam told him, taking a seat at the table by the front window - or at least, that used to be by the front window. It now sat more towards the centre of the room, almost by the end of the couch, having been moved to make room for a devil's trap.

"Kettle chips, huh? Original?" Dean asked, feeding the fire some more wood. There was a flash of lightning that lit up the entire room, followed only seconds later by a clap of thunder that reverberated through the very foundations of the house and rattled the pictures on the walls.

"Yeah. Why?" Sam asked, when the thunder died away.

"How can demons even _eat _salt?"

Sam blinked, furrowing his brow. "I've wondered a lot of things about demons, Dean, but never _that_…"

"I think when I find that sabotaging whore, I'm going to ask," Dean said evenly, sitting back on his heels and stretching his hands palm-out towards the fire.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

As the sun went down behind the storm clouds, Sam sat at the table doing a newspaper crossword - in pen. Dean was sitting on the floor by the fire, leaning against the couch with his little black exorcism book in front of him, reciting the Rituale for the twenty-something-th time that evening.

"Exorcizamus te, omnus immundis spiritus -"

"Omn_is_ immund_us_ spiritus," Sam corrected, absently, not looking up from the paper.

"- omn_is_ immund_us_ spiritus; omnis satanica protestas -"

"_Po_testas."

"- _po_testas, omnis incursio infernalis adversary -"

"Adversari-_i_."

Dean sighed. "- infernalis adversari_i_; omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica." He glanced up at Sam, but there was apparently nothing wrong with the end of that passage, so he continued.

"Ergo, draco maledicte. Ecclesiam tuam securi tibi facias liberate -"

"Liber_tate_. There's another 't' in there."

Dean rubbed wearily at the bridge of his nose. "- liber_tate_ servire; te rogamus, adios."

"_Audi nos_," Sam told him.

"What?"

"It's_ audi nos_, not 'adios'."

Dean paused to think about that. "Yeah, well, _adios_ makes more sense."

"This is Latin, Dean, not Spanish. You're not Clint Eastwood, and this isn't _Bronco Billy_ - if you can't say this next time a demon knocks the cue cards out of your hands…!" Despite his best efforts, Sam was starting to get exasperated. They'd gone over and over it, but it just wasn't sinking in and Dean's repeated massacres of the language were getting on his little brother's nerves.

He took a couple of deep, calming breaths and put down his crossword. "Why are you so keen to learn it all of a sudden, anyway?" he asked.

"So that when I find her, I can send that black-eyed, sabotaging whore back to Hell!" Dean snapped, and hurled the book at the wall in a fit of frustration not entirely rooted in the Latin. He winced as his bruised shoulder protested, but the bottom of the book's spine still left a triangular indentation in the wallpaper and the plaster below, before gravity took over and the little black book smacked into the hardwood floorboards.

Dean threw himself down on the couch with a frustrated groan, draping an arm across his eyes. Sam went over and picked the book up, smoothing out the crushed spine as best he could, and set it down on the table by his newspaper.

"I need that," Dean grumbled, without moving his arm.

"No you don't," Sam told him.

"Yeah, Sammy, I _do_."

Sam sighed, throwing a pleading glance up towards the heavens. "Look, just forget the book, will you?"

That got Dean's attention, and he moved his arm away from his face to look at Sam. "Forget the book?"

"Forget the book," Sam confirmed. "You don't learn by reading, Dean. Your academic record tells us that. Chances are you're not going to learn the Rituale Romanum by reading it from a book before you drive one or both of us insane," he continued, his voice dry.

Dean allowed himself a little smile - that was probably true. His horrendous pronunciation was already obviously driving Sam up the wall. "How am I going to learn it if I don't read it?" he asked.

"We're going to do it together. I'm going to teach you one line at a time until you get it perfect, then move on to the next," Sam said, and Dean sat up.

"Sort of a 'repeat after me' kind of thing?" he said slowly.

Sam nodded, sitting back down at his crossword. "Exactly. Like learning a foreign language from those tapes," he replied, and Dean creased his brow as he thought about that. It had to be better than reading it from a book, right?

Before he could reply, there was another flash of lightning and the house was suddenly plunged into near-darkness. Sam and Dean both looked up and around, like you do when it goes dark, but the power didn't come back on. There was very little ambient light from the dusk outside as it was, and the fireplace didn't do a lot to light the huge room, and suddenly the house was full of shadows.

"Awesome," Dean groaned.

"I think I saw some candles in the kitchen," Sam sighed, and hauled himself to his feet.

Dean threw another log on the fire while Sam retrieved a few candles, complete with old-time metal holders with handles and wide, flared bases to catch the melted wax. He set one on his table so he could see his crossword, and put the other on the coffee table by Dean. The warm, golden light they threw off dissipated the shadows and brought out the cosy, homely feel of the sitting room.

Sam sat back down at the table, but Dean picked his candle up and disappeared wordlessly down the hall - he was back a minute later, with an expensive-looking bottle of bourbon and two tumblers. He poured one for Sam, setting it down by his candle, and then one for himself.

"Where'd you find this?" Sam asked, eyeing the amber liquid suspiciously.

"There's a study or something down the hallway, and it's got a liquor cabinet."

Sam frowned. "I saw that, but I thought it was locked."

Dean gave him a winning smile. "It was."

Sam raised the glass to his lips to hide the smile, and it was his turn to take a sip and raise his eyebrows in surprise. "Huh. That's actually really good."

"We'll have to invade more demon nests," Dean said drily, taking a sip of his own. Sam chuckled at that, and Dean sat down opposite him and the table and pulled out a deck of tattered old playing cards, which he set about shuffling.

"What're you doing?" Sam asked, when Dean started dealing the cards.

"If you don't know, then I've failed as a big brother," Dean told him. "We're gonna play a little five-card stud."

Sam shrugged and put down his crossword - it was mostly done anyway, and Dean took a look as he shuffled. Rows of little squares filled in with blue ink, Sam's neat capital letters unmarred by any corrections. That kid was meant for more than ganking things that go bump in the night.

"What're we playing for?" Sam asked. Dean opened a bag of cashew nuts and dropped a handful onto the table by way of reply. Sam smiled, and snagged half the pile.

After a few hands and a couple of helpings of smooth, well-aged Kentucky bourbon, Sam started whistling softly. Dean peered at him across the table, brow furrowed - he knew that tune, he was sure. Sam repeated the same parts over and over again for a minute, and it was the chorus that eventually gave it away.

_Seems to me  
><em>_You don't wanna talk about it  
><em>_Seems to me  
><em>_You just turn your pretty head and walk away…_

"Really, Sam?" Dean asked flatly, eyes narrowed.

"What?" Sam asked innocently, looking at him over the top of his fan of cards. He knew very well what he was doing. Dean just looked back.

"Well, you _are_ pretty." Sam put two cards down on the table and took two from the top of the deck.

"And I also _don't_ wanna talk about it." Dean could not believe Sam had turned The James Gang against him.

"The demon wasn't lying, was she?" Sam went on anyway, trying to keep his voice calm and even.

"Sam…" Dean groaned. "I told you - they lie. They like to mess with your head. This one's no different."

Sam shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Not this time, anyway. You went white as a sheet - there's something you're not telling me."

Dean dropped his cards, picked up his glass, and went to stand in front of the fire. He closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, but didn't say anything.

"Whatever that demon was talking about, I think it has to have something to do with what happened in Ohio, right?" Sam pressed, undeterred. "There's obviously something wrong here, Dean, and I just want you to _talk_ to me."

"Be careful what you wish for," Dean warned. The kid was putting the pieces together, damn him, but Dean did _not_ want to have this conversation. It hurt too Goddamn much, and it was going to hurt Sam, too.

There was a frustrated sigh from Sam, but when he spoke his voice was softer. "You know what my worst nightmare is, Dean? The worst thing I can imagine?"

Dean stared down at the vaguely floral patterns on the scarlet Persian rug under his feet, swirling the bourbon in the bottom of his glass. He didn't know, and he had a feeling he didn't want to.

"That when those Hellhounds come for you, we've spent our last year together trying not to get close. That you wouldn't_ let_ me," Sam said, his voice thick. "That when I'm alone at night, this is the memory I'm going to have to hold on to."

Dean winced. That hit a nerve, just like he knew Sam had intended it to. "Sam, there's nothing I wouldn't do for you-" he started, but Sam cut him off in mid-sentence.

"Well, clearly there is."

That stung Dean, and when he glanced over at Sam he found his little brother watching him intensely, eyes shining with tears. He looked away and knocked back the rest of his drink, chewing absently on his bottom lip as he stared into the flames.

"You weren't supposed to know this, okay? Ever." The words were out of his mouth before he even knew he was talking, and he dropped down onto the couch with a resigned sigh.

Sam came wordlessly over and took a seat in the easy chair opposite. Dean sat in silence for a long moment, turning the glass around and around in his hands, trying to find the words.

"I always _told _you Dad never knew about us," he began, eventually. "But do you remember that day at Bobby's, when he really went off at you about blowing off target practice for that soccer game a few days earlier? You were, like, fifteen?"

Sam nodded. It had been only a few months after his fifteenth birthday. "It was the county final, but Dad didn't care that we won - only that I hadn't been practising. He really blew a gasket."

"I found you hiding out in the salvage yard, throwing rocks at a stack of old wrecks," Dean continued.

Sam nodded - he remembered that, too. Dean knew exactly where to find him, and he'd pried the rough chunk of broken cement from his little brother's hand and wrapped him in a hug. They'd spent a few minutes hugging and kissing, Dean trying to make him feel a little better-

"Oh fuck," Sam breathed, as the realisation dawned on him.

"Yeah. He saw us." Dean reached for the bottle to pour himself another drink and tried to ignore the way his hand was shaking.

"If he saw us, why didn't he say anything?" Sam asked, confused. He didn't imagine John had been exactly thrilled to see his sons kissing amongst the wrecks in Bobby's yard, and he definitely wouldn't have kept something like that to himself.

"Oh, he said something all right." Dean smiled bitterly. "After you were in bed, he took me out to the workshop and laid it all out. He didn't know _all _the things we were doing, I don't think, but he said if he ever saw me do anything like that to you again he was going to…" Dean trailed off with an involuntary shudder.

"'If you ever did that to me'?" Sam asked, frowning. "You didn't do anything _to_ me, Dean."

Dean let out a short bark of laughter. "I know, but do you think I was going to tell _him_ that?! My responses consisted of "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" and I didn't look up from the floor the whole time!"

"I remember you had a black eye the next day," Sam said, slowly. He remembered that cold, intense stare the man had when he was angry, and it was bad enough when you'd only skipped target practice or something. He couldn't imagine what it must have been like to be Dean that night.

Dean shrugged, but didn't meet his eyes. "Plus some other bruises you couldn't see," he admitted, and paused for a long, slow breath, absently rubbing at his left side. He didn't elaborate, and Sam didn't need him to. Evidently, John hadn't kept his anger to himself.

"He never looked at me the same after that, you know? Like… I don't know, like he thought there was something _wrong_ with me." That hurt at the time, just as John intended it to, and it still stung now. Dean never said it out loud, but he'd wondered that himself, actually - what was going on in his head made it okay for him to fuck his little brother.

"You never said anything. Dad, either," Sam said, pausing to think for a second. "And that wasn't the last time we were together."

"No." Dean smiled wryly for half a second. "No, it wasn't."

Sam stared off into the middle distance for a few seconds, thinking it through. "We snuck around for another year after that. You defied Dad for a whole _year_, after he…" Sam trailed off. He was only now realising how much Dean must have wanted to be with him, to disobey their father like that. How much he'd been risking.

"Even after he knew, I thought we could get away with it, you know? If we only did it when he wasn't around." Dean sucked in a breath and looked up at the ceiling, eyes welling up despite his best efforts to blink the tears away. "Turns out that wasn't so smart."

Sam watched him silently, his stomach tying itself up into knots. He was starting to think this was going to be one of those things he wished he didn't have to know.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

_Roseburg, Oregon  
><em>_October 1999_

The sound of tyres on the driveway was the first clue someone was there. But from his vantage point, face down on the old Skylark's trunk with his jeans down around his ankles, Sam couldn't see who it was.

"Looks like your buddies are here," Dean observed, between thrusts, but he didn't let up the pressure on the back of Sam's neck as he drove into him. He could see them out the garage window, and they were busy repacking all the bags in the back of the navy blue Cadillac station wagon.

"Ugh, you're not helping, Dean!" Sam groaned, but didn't stop working his right hand up and down his cock. He really wanted this orgasm before he had to leave on his week-long road trip to California, and he didn't need Dean telling him his friends were only 30 yards away.

Dean chuckled and laid a kiss on the back of Sam's neck. It was a clear, chilly morning, and the corrugated iron of the garage didn't offer much insulation, but his skin was warm and covered in a thin, salty sheen of sweat.

"You're sixteen, Sammy," he teased. "You're supposed to be able to cum at the drop of a hat."

"And aren't you supposed to be able do things that make me go weak at the knees?" Sam shot back, breathlessly.

No sooner had he spoken than Dean grasped him by the hips and changed the angle slightly - the older Winchester's next thrust caught his prostate, just as he intended, and Sam bit down on an involuntary cry of pleasure. Dean grinned, and hit the same sweet spot mercilessly with his next few thrusts.

Sam shifted under him as his knees actually did go to jelly, and one hand reached out and closed on the bottom of the gap in the car's body where the rear window should have been while the other kept working on his cock. He was close now, Dean could tell - his shoulders were tense under his t-shirt and his breath was coming in short gasps, every exhalation a little moan of pleasure.

Dean closed his eyes and let his head fall back, concentrating on those moans and the way his little brother's body was pressed in tight all around him, slick and hot and just _divine_…

He came before Sam, but not by much. He wrapped his arms around Sam's midsection and leaned forward to place a series of long, soft kisses on the back of the kid's neck, eyes shut and breathing hard. Sam was relaxing beneath him, the tension flowing out of him after his release as he sucked in some deep breaths of his own. His hand worked lazily up and down his cock now, in much the same way Dean was still slowly moving back and forth inside him as he came down.

"This doesn't count as christening the car, you know," Sam breathed. Dean chuckled at that - the Skylark was going to be Sam's, when he was done fixing it up. The only reason he'd been fucking him against the trunk was that the car didn't actually currently have a backseat.

Before Dean could reply, there was an impatient honk from the Caddy in the driveway. Sam groaned and stood up, and Dean took a few steps back to let him get dressed. He watched as Sam hurriedly pulled his jeans back up over that tight, toned backside and ran a hand back through his hair, trying to get rid of the post-sex tousled look.

Dean was still doing up his own jeans when Sam wrapped him in a hug and gave him a long, deep kiss. "Have I told you lately that I love you?" he smiled, and Dean gave him a quick kiss of his own by way of reply.

"Have fun." He grinned and ruffled Sam's hair, tousling it all over again. "And don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Sam chuckled, running his hand over his hair again as he grabbed his bag from the floor where he'd dropped it. "There's nothing you wouldn't do," he shot back, and pulled open the garage's small side door. "See you in a week!"

Dean watched his baby brother jog down the driveway to the waiting Cadillac, where he threw his bag in through the tailgate before he jumped into the back seat. The big old boat of a car rumbled to life and wallowed slowly out onto the street, bound for California.

They were going to check out colleges, Dean knew. No-one was telling their father that, but Sam had his heart set on going after he finished high school and Dean was quite sure he was going to get the scores to make it happen.

_Hell, he'll probably go in the frigging Skylark._

He sighed and turned back to the car. "Right," he said to no-one in particular, as he pulled up the hood and positioned the broomstick that served as a makeshift prop rod. "Let's sort this master cylinder so I can take you for a spin and find all your _other_ little faults."

Dean, whistling to himself with his head under the hood, didn't hear John open the side door. He didn't even notice his father was there until he stepped inside and shut it behind him.

"Hey, Dad." Dean poked his head out briefly from under the Skylark's hood. "You just missed Sam. How was the-" he began, but didn't get to finish the sentence. John took three quick steps and backhanded him so hard he actually lost his balance, took a few stumbling steps, and crashed back into the steel-framed, corrugated iron wall.

The whole building rang when he hit it, and he leaned against the wall with his hand pressed to his jaw as John closed on him. He was too shocked to move at first, but his eyes opened wide as saucers when he saw the blade glinting in John's hand. Dean tried to dodge, but he wasn't nearly quick enough and the keen edge drew a hot line of pain across the fleshy part of his forearm just below the elbow.

Dean let out a yelp of pain, but John didn't miss a beat. He grabbed a small flask from his pocket, made of silver and embossed with a Christian cross, and flung the contents at Dean. He instinctively threw his hand up to shield his face, and the water stung the bleeding wound on his forearm.

"Dad! What the hell are you _doing_?" Dean backed away down the wall, towards the rear of the car and the big main garage door, wide eyes on his father.

John sighed, running a hand back over his hair. He looked distressed, like he didn't quite know where to go from here. "God, I hoped you were a shapeshifter, demon - _something_," he said, more to himself than anything else.

Dean blinked. Shapeshifters and demons? Well, that explained the knife - evidently silver - and the liquid. That had been holy water.

"Christ, Dad, I'm not a frigging _monster_!" Dean took a couple more steps back, but stopped when his back touched the end of the garage. His arm was still stinging, his head throbbed in time with his hammering heart, and he had no idea what the fuck was going on.

"Dad, what-" Dean started, but stopped himself. The bottom dropped out of his stomach, and all the colour drained from his face. He suddenly understood what this was about.

John didn't say anything. He just came a few steps closer, bending down briefly to pick up an old, splintered pickaxe handle that leaned against the garage wall, and his eyes were hard and cold as they settled on Dean.

Dean's heart rate shoot through the roof, and he instinctively glanced around for the nearest exit. The wall he was leaning against was actually the big main door to the garage, and although the latch was within reach, he'd locked it up when he first brought the Skylark in. He wasn't getting out that way. He took a look over towards the door in the wall diagonally opposite him that John had come in through, all the way on the other side of the car - it was shut, but not locked. The padlock was hanging open from the latch.

"I hoped it wasn't _you_, Dean," John told him, his voice low, and Dean's eyes snapped back to his father. He knew John had seen him looking for an escape route - he'd seen it coming even before Dean twigged to what was going on. That was why he was standing between his eldest son and the only way out.

Dean stood in the corner of this big, metal box like a trapped rat, watching his father warily. He paced beside the car a few times, his jaw set in a hard line and that big, heavy chunk of wood grasped in one fist, and anger radiated from him in almost-tangible waves.

"I hoped it was something else, because that would mean you _weren't fucking your sixteen-year-old baby brother_!" John growled. He was _furious_, and Dean couldn't help but cringe slightly. John saw it, and pressed harder.

He took another step closer, tightening his grip on the pickaxe handle. "Did you reallythink I wouldn't notice?" he demanded. "Did you _really_ think you could get away with it?!"

Dean was silent for a long moment, his eyes on the chunk of wood in his father's hand. He was gripping it so tight his knuckles had gone white, and he was all but shaking with rage.

"Not really, no," he admitted, and was surprised to hear his voice come out low and flat. He didn't sound nearly as afraid as he felt. John was probably going to hurt him anyway, no matter what he said - might as well tell the truth.

John's face twisted into a snarl and he raised the pickaxe handle. Dean flinched, but instead of swinging it at him, John hurled it across the garage in a fit of rage. It hit the wall just beside the unlocked door with a _clang_, putting a dent in the corrugated iron. Then, without warning, he turned and launched a vicious right cross that caught Dean on the jaw and made him see stars. He lost his footing and landed hard on the cold concrete floor, his head spinning.

"What's wrong with you?" John demanded, standing over him. "What's wrong with you that made you think this was okay?!"

"He wanted to," Dean groaned. When he touched his hand to his mouth, it came away bloody - the punch had split his bottom lip. "He _wanted_ me to-"

Dean barely had time to realise that probably wasn't the smartest thing to say before John's hand closed like a vice on his upper arm and jerked him to his feet.

"Don't you dare tell me he wanted it. Don't you_ dare_!" John grabbed a handful of his hair and slammed Dean's head repeatedly into the tin wall of the shed, vicious shots to his face that cracked his left cheekbone and eye socket, and then hit him in the face with another full-blooded punch.

Dean staggered back into the rear end of the Skylark, half-blinded by a cut over his rapidly-swelling left eye that was pouring blood, but his mildly-concussed brain still managed to tell him he was now between John and the unlocked side door.

He turned and made an unsteady run for it, but John scooped up a length of heavy chain from the floor and whipped it at him, catching him in the side, and Dean howled in pain. The chain wrapped around his body a little, following the curve of his ribcage and leaving a foot-long bruise on the tender skin as it knocked the breath out of him. Dean didn't actually hear it crack, but the explosion of hot pain in his side told him John had just broken a rib.

He collapsed against the rear quarter panel of the car, arm pressed to his injured right side, and John swung the chain again. Dean instinctively turned away and the chain slammed into his back, across the bottom of his shoulder blades. It drove whatever breath he had left right out of his lungs, and he slid down the side of the car until he was sitting on the floor, gasping and struggling to breathe.

John appeared in the peripheral vision of his one good eye, standing over him, and he kicked out - on reflex more than anything. He connected with something solid and there was a grunt of pain, but that was followed by an explosion of stars in his vision as John bent down hit him across the face again. He straightened up and kicked Dean hard in the side a couple of times, each blow accompanied by a frustrated, angry yell.

"Dad, please. You don't have to do this," Dean pleaded breathlessly.

"You didn't have to touch your brother." John's voice was hard as he hauled Dean to his feet again. Then, before he could even get his hands up in front of his face, John clamped a hand on the back of Dean's neck and drove his head at the Skylark's rear driver's side window.

The window shattered, sprinkling the floor with angular marbles of safety glass. John released his grip, and Dean landed right in the middle of it when his legs went out from under him like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

He put his hands out to break his fall, but he wasn't quick enough. He landed mostly on his forearms, the razor-sharp fragments tearing into his arms and the heels of his hands. A few pieces got stuck in his knees, too, and that hurt like a motherfucker, but he didn't have enough breath to scream.

Dean rolled away from the Skylark and the broken glass, grimacing as his broken rib protested savagely, and came to rest on his back. He held his hands in front of his body, looking up at the pitched roof of the garage and trying to breathe through the pain of his broken rib as the blood ran down his arms. He could feel it pooling in a warm, wet spot on his shirt, just above his navel.

He couldn't believe how fast this day had gone to hell. Not even ten minutes ago he'd been with Sam, having some pretty awesome goodbye sex right on this spot - they'd figured they were safe, given that John got back from his latest hunt after midnight the night before. They'd been wrong, apparently.

Even after the warning in Sioux Falls, Dean was still surprised how ruthless his father was being. He was going to come out of this with some significant injuries, and as he lay on the floor bleeding, Dean wondered briefly how they were going to explain this to Sam. The kid was only going to be gone a week, and when he got back he was going to notice that his big brother looked like he'd been run over by a truck…

Dean's rambling train of thought was interrupted by the sound of boots on concrete, and a blurry face came into view as the John glared down at him.

"Dad -" Dean rasped, but John gave him a cold look that shut him up midsentence.

"I told you, boy. You get _one _warning. _One_ pass."

Dean couldn't help it. He let out a harsh bark of bitter laughter, but his rib protested and he winced. "A free pass?" he croaked. "You beat me so hard it hurt to _breathe_."

John bared his teeth in a hard, mirthless smile and kicked Dean's right hand out to the side, stepping on his wrist and pinning it to the floor. Dean bit down on a cry of pain as the shattered glass bit into his skin, and he turned his head to see a trickle of blood run out from under the back of his hand to pool around the flat rear tyre of the Skylark.

"I told you that night in Sioux Falls. Leave your baby brother alone, or there would be consequences." John came down hard with his boot on Dean's hand, and the pain took his breath away. His vision exploded into little pinpricks of light as dozens of little fragments of glass embedded themselves deep in the back of his hand, and he heard bones snap like dry twigs.

John released his hold on Dean's wrist, and he rolled over onto his side with a strangled groan of pain, curling up around his injured hand. He struggled to suck in any air, and his vision was blurred with involuntary tears - so much so that it took him a second to make out the pickaxe handle John had thrown earlier, sitting almost within reach at the base of the corrugated iron wall.

Dean reached for the pick handle with his undamaged left hand, more out of instinct than anything else, but John's hand materialised in front of him and he picked it up instead. Dean rolled onto his back with a groan and saw John looking down at him. He didn't look like he was feeling any remorse at all about beating up his eldest son.

"I know how sneaky you are, Dean - I _taught_ you," he said, twirling the handle like a baseball player about to step up to bat. Then he brought it down hard on Dean's midsection, knocking the breath from his lungs and cracking a couple of his bottom ribs.

While he was still gasping for air, John hauled him back up to his feet and shoved him hard back against the car. "You were supposed to look after him!" he grunted, and punched Dean hard in the stomach, ribs and sides, first with his right hand and then his left, over and over, like he was working a heavy bag. He gave Dean one last, hard punch right in the stomach that doubled him over.

"I would never hurt him," Dean gasped, and John grabbed him by the throat and pushed him hard against the car, the door handle digging painfully into his lower back.

"What did you say?!" he demanded.

"_I would never hurt him!_" Dean screamed he words this time, ignoring the pain that flared in his chest.

"'You would never hurt him'." John repeated, like he'd never heard the words before. "You'd never hurt your baby brother, and yet you thought it was okay to _hold him down and fuck him_?"

"I didn't _have_ to hold him down." Dean forced himself to suck in a long, shuddering breath and glared at John, blinking blood and tears out of his eyes. "And if he didn't want it, Sam would tell me. He would fight back."

"You're fighting back now," John pointed out coldly. "Is it doing you any good?"

Dean growled and kicked out, but John avoided it easily. He hit Dean again, and he collapsed back against the Skylark, his head spinning.

"Do whatever you want to me," he rasped, struggling to hold himself vertical with his uninjured left arm as he held his right close to his body, "but I love that kid, and I _never_ did anything he didn't want." His left eye was all but swollen shut, but he still managed to glare at his father.

"And, now that we're getting all this out in the open, you should know something," he continued, a defiant little gleam in his eye. Anything worth doing was worth overdoing, right?

"We've been sleeping together for about eighteen months, all told, and I was the one that popped his cherry."

That seemed to break the last shred of John's self-control. He picked up the pickaxe handle and swung it at Dean, over and over, as hard as he could. Dean instinctively threw his arms up and managed to block some blows, but he couldn't stop all of them - he eventually sank to the floor under the onslaught, semi-conscious, after a couple of good knocks got through his defences.

John gave him one last bruising shot to the shoulder, and only then did he stop swinging the splintered chunk of wood. He tossed it away into the wall and Dean heard footsteps as John walked off towards the back of the garage. That left his original escape route free, but he was in no shape to do anything about it. He tried to push himself up off the floor, but everything hurt and things weren't working the way they should be.

His right arm hurt when he put pressure on it, and there was some fairly wicked bruising and a goose egg over the midway point of his ulna - probably broken, he figured. A few of his fingers didn't look quite straight anymore, either, and when he coughed he saw specks of blood landing on the concrete in front of him. That wasn't good, he knew - especially considering how hard it was getting to breathe…

Dean lay there, bleeding and gasping for breath, and it wasn't long before he heard the footsteps coming back towards him. He looked up through his one good eye, with some considerable effort, and saw John standing a few feet away. He had a length of electrical cord in his hands, and a pair of pliers or something in the other, and he was…

Dean's heart skipped a beat when he realised what was happening. John had snipped one plug end off a long extension cord, and he had pliers or something in one hand that he was using to strip the plastic insulation from the bare copper wire. He wasn't being careful about it and Dean could see the sharp, frayed ends of broken wires coming loose from the bundle as John stripped away chunk after chunk of insulation from over the top of them.

"I told you, Dean," John said, as he set the pliers down on the Skylark's roof and wrapped the last foot of insulated wire around his right hand. "I _told_ you there were going to be consequences!" He grunted the last word as he kicked Dean hard in the side, turning him over onto his stomach, and then swung the bare wire down on his back.

Dean's thin cotton t-shirt offered no protection. It split upon contact and the stripped cord sliced into the tender skin below, the sharp ends of broken wires digging into the flesh across the back of his shoulders. Dean couldn't _believe_ the pain, and he let out a rasping scream with whatever breath he had left in his lungs.

"For God's sake, he's a _kid_, Dean!" John yelled, and then paused. When he spoke again, he sounded resigned. "I should've done this in Sioux Falls last year when I first found out how broken you are."

As Dean lay there bleeding and unable to breathe properly, his whole body hurting and his back a mass of fresh, hot pain, it almost hurt more that his father thought he was a monster. Then John brought the cord down on Dean's back again with every ounce of strength he had, opening up a new wound diagonally across the first and drawing another cry of agony, and he lost the world in a white haze of pain.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Sam stayed quiet while Dean told him the whole, twisted story. He didn't make eye contact the entire time, preferring to look down at the floor or at the fire, or even at the wallpaper on the wall behind his little brother. That suited Sam just fine, because it meant Dean didn't see the tears in his eyes.

"I woke up in the hospital with Dad standing over me, and I thought for sure I was dead - and probably in Hell to boot," Dean said softly, a bitter little smile briefly touching his lips. "You know what his first words to me were?"

Sam shook his head. He wiped at his eyes with his sleeve, but his gaze never left Dean's pale, tear-stained face. He didn't know if Dean realised it, but tears had been rolling down his cheeks since he was halfway through his story.

"He didn't want to know if I was feeling okay. He didn't tell me if I was going to live or die. The bastard just wanted to get our fucking stories straight. He told me that…" Dean paused, fretting at his bottom lip. It looked like he was struggling to make his mouth form the words.

"He told me that if I told anyone what had actually happened, he would kill me." Dean took a long breath and exhaled slowly, briefly meeting Sam's eyes. He saw them full of tears and immediately looked away again, reaching for the bourbon and his glass and downing another quick shot.

"The story was that I got drunk, got into a fight, then stole his car and crashed it. _That_ was the truth. _That_ was what happened," Dean said, his voice low and a little husky from the bourbon. He remembered the cold look on his father's face as he said those words, and shuddered. He'd been so cool, looking at Dean lying in the hospital bed, all the while knowing he was the one that put him there.

"You know, that's the first time I've ever told anyone that story. I've been telling Dad's lie for ten _fucking_ years," he spat, and grabbed the bourbon for another drink. This time he didn't bother with the glass - he just took a long pull directly from the bottle.

"I always believed it," Sam breathed. It made him sick to think of how many times John had lied to him, and made _Dean_ lie. And the truly scary part: how well the pair of them had done it. From the moment John called to say Dean had been in an accident, he'd never suspected there was more to it.

Sam's brain started ticking over, connecting all the dots, and Dean was happy to just sit and let him. He was going to work it all out anyway, and it was easier than having to tell the story.

A lot of things were suddenly making sense to Sam. He hadn't given it much thought at the time, but he and Dean actually got precious little alone time after he got out of hospital. Dean had spent a couple of months convalescing with Pastor Jim while John took his youngest son hunting, and had - conveniently - been well enough to go back on the road about the time Sam had gone back to school for his second-last year. For which John had sent him to stay with Jim in Minnesota…

"Dad didn't leave me to finish high school in Blue Earth out of the goodness of his heart, did he?" Sam asked the question anyway, despite the fact he was pretty sure he already knew the answer. Dean just shook his head.

"He wanted to keep you away from me, and the best way to do that without me asking questions was to leave me in one school for more than four weeks at a time," Sam said bitterly. He'd been so happy when John had sent him to Blue Earth - he didn't know how he could've been so _blind_.

He looked over at Dean, and his big brother was staring into the fire, eyes unfocused. "I wanted you to come with me," Sam told him, softly. "I asked Dad to let you stay with me in Blue Earth for a while, but he told me he needed you on the road with him. He said he needed the backup."

"You couldn't have known." Dean tried to look nonchalant as he sat back against the couch. If it weren't for the haunted look in his eyes, he might have pulled it off.

"Why did you stay with him all those years?" Sam asked, his voice low and raw. The more he thought about it, the more he was amazed how well Dean and John had kept the secret. He'd never seen a hint of any of this - not before he left for Stanford, or even after Dean came to get him when John went missing a couple of Halloweens ago. They'd worked so well together on the vampire hunt where they'd found the Colt, and even when John was possessed and he'd had every reason in the world to do it, Dean had refused to shoot him…

"Where else was I gonna go?" Dean said simply, and shrugged a shoulder. "Plus, he was hunting the thing that killed Mom and I had to see that through. And before you ask," he added quickly, "the answer is 'no'. He never spoke about it again, unless he was beating on me for daring to mention your name, and I sure as hell didn't bring it up."

Sam felt the tears rolling down his cheeks. He understood a lot more now. Why Dean never dared to stand up to their father, and blindly obeyed every word the man said - it was beaten into him. He didn't believe he was worth anything because John told him so, and there was no-one around to help him climb out of that hell. Including his brother.

"Stop looking at me like that," Dean told him sharply. He could see what Sam was thinking. It was written all over his face.

"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam said anyway, and wiped at his eyes. "Oh God. You know, when I finally went off to Stanford, I almost asked you to come with me?"

Dean blinked, surprised. He _didn't_ know that, actually.

"But it had been so long since we'd been together, and we never really got to talk so I wasn't sure if you still wanted that…" Sam went on. Between Dean's recovery, Sam's extended stay at school, and that brief slice of Hell spent together on the road as a 'family' before he'd left for Stanford early in the summer after graduation… they never really got another chance to be together, or even to really_ talk_.

Not that he thought Dean would have told him the truth anyway, but it made Sam sick to think that while he'd been making friends, going to prom and thinking about prospective colleges, Dean had been stuck with the man who had very nearly beaten him to death.

"Christ, maybe if I'd just _said _something-"

"Sam, _don't_." Dean interrupted him mid-sentence.

Sam looked confused. "Don't what?"

"Don't put this on yourself," Dean told him firmly. This was what he'd been afraid of - that Sam would immediately assume all the blame for what had happened to his big brother, even though Dean had gone in with his eyes wide open.

"But you're still-"

"It's not your fault, okay? None of this is," Dean interrupted him again, looking directly into Sam's eyes, and the younger Winchester's brow creased into a frown.

"So this bruise on the back of my shoulder is completely unrelated to all of this?" he asked. He didn't look even a little bit convinced.

Dean sighed, throwing a pleading glance up towards the heavens. "Look, you were right, okay? What that demon said about Dad's 'meltdown' _is_ connected to that other night in Hanover when I freaked out and shoved you, but that had nothing to do with _you_."

He wanted desperately for Sam to understand, but Dean knew even as the words were coming out of his mouth that he wasn't saying it right. He could tell just by looking at the expression on his face that Sam didn't believe him. He was sure he was the root cause of all this.

"Look, when you kissed me, it was like…" Dean trailed off, frustration darkening his features. He wasn't good at this touchy-feely stuff - he just didn't have the right words.

"I don't know how else to explain it except that it was like warning bells went off all through my nervous system. It tied my stomach up in knots and my heart started trying to pound its way out of my chest, because the last time I touched you it nearly killed me." Dean's hand went absently to rest over his heart, fingertips pressed to his shirt, like he could still feel it.

"And that really sucked, because all I've wanted to do since I got out of the hospital was touch you," he continued, and Sam's eyes widened.

"I _never_ stopped wanting you. _Ever_. But whenever I think I might do something about it, every fibre of my being literally screams at me that it's wrong and I shouldn't, and then I need a bottle of whisky to shut it up." Dean looked away, trying to blink back tears. "So do you get it now? That it's not that I don't _want_ you?"

It took Sam a second to respond. "Yeah. I understand," he said, voice soft and thick. He understood all right.

All the time he spent thinking Dean didn't want to be with him - it wasn't that he didn't want to. He just _couldn't_. In Dean's head, his feelings for his brother were caught up in that web of trauma and scar tissue from what their father did, and he could understand why Dean hadn't ever wanted to try again - if it were him, he probably wouldn't want to try again _now_.

"Even after all the shit he put me through, I didn't want you to know that about Dad. He only wanted to protect you," Dean said, but didn't look up as Sam came to sit beside him. He didn't touch his big brother, he just sat with him.

"You didn't deserve that." Sam knew Dean had only ever been interested in making him feel good, and he hated the thought that John punished him for it.

Dean sniffed. "Yeah, maybe so, but I knew what I was letting myself in for after that warning in the workshop in Sioux Falls." Maybe he hadn't expected to land in hospital, exactly, but he knew what he was getting into.

"I'm just glad he didn't do it to you," he said, softer, and Sam reached out and put a hand over his. But Dean pulled it away and got to his feet, back turned to Sam while he wiped roughly at his eyes, shoulders rising and falling as he took some long, deep breaths.

"Will you just let me _help _you?" Sam asked. Right now, all he wanted to do was give Dean a big bear hug.

"What, did you swipe a neuralyser from the Men in Black when I wasn't looking?" Dean tried to keep his voice light, but it cracked as the emotion broke through.

"Dad's not around to disapprove anymore, okay? It's just you and me. No-one else for miles." Sam stood and went around to face him, but he had to get right in front of his big brother before Dean would meet his eyes. After a moment's hesitation, he put one hand on Dean's hip and the older Winchester let Sam draw him in closer. He was tense, but he didn't pull away.

"Haven't we wasted enough time?" Sam brought one hand up to touch Dean's cheek, and placed two fingers over the pulse just below his jaw - he could feel his big brother's heart hammering away, his blood pressure suddenly sky-high. Dean reached up and pushed Sam's fingers back from his neck, and he could feel his big brother's hand trembling.

"Wow, you weren't kidding about the physical reaction," Sam breathed. He'd never known Dean to shake like this, ever - even in the face of ravening monsters trying to eat his face, his hand was always rock steady. And that, more than anything, really drove it home to him that the sudden end to their relationship and the incident in Hanover really weren't his fault. Dean had no control over it.

"Sam…"

"Shut up." Sam laid a gentle kiss on his left cheek, closing his lips just as they came into contact with the smooth, tanned skin - one of the first things Dean taught him when they were teenagers.

"You're not playing fair." Dean managed to make the whisper sound accusing, but he didn't pull away.

"Just tell me you don't want to and that'll be the end of it," Sam murmured, placing a few more kisses on the soft, tear-stained skin. He felt a hand on the back of his neck, pulling him closer, and he wound his arms around Dean's lower back. His big brother's chest pressed hard up against his and he smiled as he felt a hand slide up under his shirt, just resting on his side.

Dean exhaled slowly, then pressed his lips to Sam's in a gentle kiss, that hand moving slowly over the smooth, soft skin of his side.

The way the kid's body moulded itself to his brought back all kinds of warm, fuzzy memories of long evenings spent in each other's arms, and before he knew it he was undoing jackets and shirts and tossing them away. He dimly noticed the sound of tearing stitching as he pulled his own black tee off over his head, but he ignored it and pulled Sam in close and crushed his mouth against his with a low growl.

Sam made a pleased little sound in the back of his throat as Dean's bare chest pressed against his, and wrapped his arms around the older Winchester's lower back as he unconsciously ground his hips against Dean's. Dean let out a small groan and kissed him harder, reaching down between them to undo various studs and zippers in an effort to get the rapidly-tightening denim out of the way.

Sam felt it when Dean got his jeans undone, and he couldn't help the little sigh of relief when the constricting pressure was released on his growing erection. He pushed Dean back onto the couch, and the older Winchester leaned back into the corner and let Sam pull his jeans off, then watched as he shimmied out of his own.

"One day you're gonna have to do that again," he said, smiling, as Sam sat across his lap. "Just a_ lot _slower."

Before Sam could answer, Dean locked a hand on the back of his neck and pulled him in close, crushing his lips against his baby brother's. Sam let out a little grunt of surprise, but he went with it, and Dean wound an arm around that muscular lower back to keep him pressed close.

He felt Sam's hands on him, exploring the ridges and valleys of muscle in his chest, then down onto his stomach, fingertips skipping over his washboard abs. Hands rubbed up and down his side, reaching around to his back, like a soothing massage.

Dean wanted to stay locked in that kiss forever, but the way Sam was subtly moving his hips, grinding his crotch against Dean's with only a couple of flimsy layers of boxer shorts between them was starting to drive him insane.

He reached down between them, and felt Sam falter briefly in the kiss when he ran a hand slowly over the hot, hard bulge in the front of his boxers. He smiled against Sam's lips, and slid his hand beneath the waistband.

Sam was just as hard as he was, and the smooth, velvety skin was hot to the touch as Dean wrapped his hand around him. There was a small groan as he started to pump it up and down, slowly but steadily.

Sam broke the kiss and let his forehead rest against Dean's, eyes closed and each breath coming as more of a short moan. Dean pressed forward and placed a series of short kisses on and around his lips as he worked his cock, but Sam couldn't seem to make his lips work to return the favour - Dean took that as a compliment.

He felt his own bulge throbbing and straining against the fabric of his boxers, but he pushed Sam's hand away when he reached for it. "That's not how this is gonna end," he breathed.

Sam smiled and let Dean push him back into the opposite corner of the couch and pull off his boxers. He caught his lower lip between his teeth as he watched Dean stand up to remove his own - he could clearly see the outline of Dean's hard-on as it strained against the faded black boxers, held flat against his left hip with a distinct dark spot just at the tip…

Dean knelt on the couch, in between Sam's knees, and leaned over to kiss him again. Sam rested one leg over Dean's thigh and let the other hang off the side of the couch, and shivered when he felt something hot and hard touch him.

"Dean…" Sam murmured against his lips. There was no lube in the duffels, but he didn't make a habit of sleeping with other guys - if they were going to do this, they were going to need something more than spit and precum.

"I know," Dean whispered back. He had already considered that. He gave Sam one more quick kiss and reached down into his bag, sitting on the floor at the end of the couch, and pulled out a small bottle. When he saw what it was, Sam couldn't help but smile. They'd never used gun oil before, but he figured it was appropriate for a couple of Winchesters.

"No condoms either," Dean added, apologetically, and flicked the top off the bottle of oil.

"'s fine. I already know you're a slut and I'm okay with it," Sam whispered, his eyes sparkling. He gasped when Dean pinched him.

Dean smiled and pressed his lips briefly against Sam's, reaching down to stroke an oiled finger between his ass cheeks. Sam sucked in a quick breath, and a slow smile spread across his lips as Dean did it again. He started to say something, but Dean silenced him with a kiss and kept gently rubbing that finger back and forth.

Sam's breath started coming in low, gasping moans and Dean watched his little brother's eyes fall slowly closed, feeling his whole body relaxing beneath him. Dean leaned in to kiss him again and Sam reached up to wind his arms around his big brother's neck and pull him in closer, deepening the kiss.

"Do it," he breathed, his lips still touching Dean's.

His heart rate jumped as he felt that hot, slick hardness press against him, but before he could even form the thought that he should try and stay relaxed, Dean shifted his hips slightly and let out a low groan as he suddenly slipped inside.

Sam couldn't help it. He broke the kiss with small gasp of pain, and Dean felt him tense as he arched his back slightly.

"You good?" Dean asked, placing a couple of slow, soft kisses on Sam's cheek. His nose was full of Sam's musky scent, mixed with bourbon and gun oil, and he paused to savour the sensation while he gave Sam a chance to adjust.

"Mmm." Sam exhaled slowly and kissed his silky lips, but still shifted a little beneath him. He wasn't comfortable yet. "I forgot how much it hurts at first."

"Nice to know you haven't been screwing around on me," Dean breathed, smiling, but Sam just rolled his eyes.

"And now it's _exactly_ the way I remember it," he shot back, slightly breathless, and nipped gently at Dean's lower lip. Dean pressed forward and turned it into a kiss, enjoying the low groan from Sam as he shifted his hips at the same time, pushing in as deep as he could go.

"God, it's good to be with you again," Dean murmured against his mouth, drawing his hips back slowly. Sam sucked in a deep breath, catching Dean's lower lip between his teeth as he pushed gently back in, arching his back and exhaling a little moan of pleasure.

Dean took it slow, with long, deep strokes. Sam held him close, one hand on the back of his neck and the other pressing down on the middle of his back. The kid had a lot more muscle now, and Dean could feel it when he grasped Sam by the waist - the big muscles in his stomach and lower back moved with every thrust, pushing back against him.

It didn't take as long as Dean would've liked, but by the time he was close to the end, they were both still panting and covered in a sheen of sweat that had nothing to do with the roaring fire.

He drove harder into Sam as he got close, and even after all this time Sam recognised the signals. He already had one hand down between them, working up and down his own cock, and he got there just after Dean.

Dean flaked out in the opposite corner of the couch, chest heaving and still absently stroking a hand up and down his disappearing erection. He held a hand out to Sam, who was wiping himself down with a handy t-shirt, and pulled him across to lay in front of him. Dean cuddled right up to him, chest pressed against his baby brother's back just like he used to when they were younger. Sam felt an arm wrap around his waist as soft lips pressed to the back of his neck, and he closed his eyes with a sigh.

"This is what I wanted when I kissed you," he murmured softly.

Dean winced. "I'm sorry, Sammy," he whispered as his hand rubbed slowly up and down Sam's right side in an unconscious soothing motion. "I didn't handle this all that well, did I?"

"No, you didn't."

"I don't want you to remember that - hell,_ I_ don't want to remember that." Dean kissed the back of Sam's neck, inhaling the scent of his hair. "I just don't want it to hurt you any more than it's already going to." His breath tickled, and Sam shivered. Laying here in Dean's arms, he didn't want to think about that.

"So, does this mean we can start renting rooms with just one bed?" he asked.

"We'll have to get out of this house first," Dean pointed out, smiling. He saw the change of subject for what it was, but didn't press it. He didn't particularly want to think about it either.

"We could just stay here," Sam suggested. "I mean, I like this whole sex-in-front-of-an-open-fire thing."

Dean chuckled. "I'm not so keen on roasted nuts," he quipped, and moved to get up. Sam gave a disappointed groan and turned to look at him.

"Time for a shower," Dean said, like it should be obvious.

"Why…?"

"Well, you didn't _expect _me to fuck you raw and blow my load balls-deep inside you, did you…?" Dean said, without putting too fine a point on it.

Sam thought it through and wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, it's time for a shower," he agreed, and let Dean pull him to his feet. "You've got such a way with words," he added, and Dean chuckled as he grabbed the candle off the coffee table.

He led his baby brother by the wrist down the dark hallway to the downstairs bathroom, their bare feet whispering on the hardwood floor. There were the ghosts of framed pictures on the walls, taken with their owners when they left, but the tables and bookcases and other random furniture along the way was still in place.

"Well, at least they kept the place clean," Sam observed, standing in the doorway of the bathroom. Even by candlelight, the white tiles, chrome fixtures and old white-enamelled, claw-foot cast iron tub sparkled. It was a helluva lot nicer than the motel bathrooms they were used to.

"No towels, though," Dean pointed out, nodding towards the empty rack on the wall.

"I saw a linen press down the hall. You start the shower and I'll see what I can find," Sam told him.

Dean gave him a flat look. "It makes me sad that you use the phrase 'linen press'," he said, feigning disappointment. Sam swatted him playfully on the shoulder and padded off back down the hall.

Dean chuckled to himself, watching Sam and his firm, smooth backside disappear into the shadows, then set the candle on the vanity. He opened the door on the chrome-and-glass shower, smiling as he leaned in and turned on the water - the thing had to be big enough to fit _three_ people in. With the water running and his back turned, he didn't hear Sam come back into the room.

"Hey, I found some…" Sam started, but trailed off.

Dean swore under his breath and turned to find Sam standing in the doorway, two white, fluffy-looking towels in his hands and eyes wide with shock. The towels fell from his hands and he left them in a pile on the floor to come straight over to Dean.

"Sam…" he sighed, but the younger Winchester put a hand on his shoulder and turned him back around. Dean tensed as he felt him gently run a finger across his back, over one of the long ridges of pale scar tissue that marred the otherwise smooth skin.

"How have I never seen these?" Sam whispered.

"I told you what he did," Dean said, his voice low and raw. He fought the urge to pull away as Sam softly traced each of the half-dozen scars with his fingertip.

"I didn't think he did _this_."

"He wanted to make a point." Dean turned back to face Sam, and the younger Winchester let him wrap him in a hug.

"They're from the extension cord, aren't they?" Sam asked softly, looping his arms around Dean's lower back.

"Mm-hmm," Dean sighed, closing his eyes and trying to concentrate on Sam's warm, firm body pressed against his instead of the memories pounding on the wall he'd put up to keep them at bay. "He only stopped at six because I passed out and he couldn't wake me up."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Dean told him, and pressed his lips against the pulse under his little brother's jawline. "You were worth it," he whispered, his lips brushing the sensitive skin, and Sam couldn't help but smile a little at that thought.

"Let's not talk about Dad, okay?" Dean murmured, and kept kissing. Sam let his head fall to the side to give him better access to the soft, smooth skin of his throat. "Now come and have a shower with me and get cleaned up so I can fuck your brains out again later."

Sam laughed breathlessly and let Dean shepherd him into the shower. He stood under the streaming water and let Dean suck a couple more bruises into his neck, because he knew it made him feel better to make someone else feel good.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

It was still raining outside when they were done with their shower, and the power showed no signs of coming back on. Dean checked the fuse box, just in case the lightning had tripped a circuit breaker or blown a fuse or something, but everything was as it should be. The house just wasn't getting any juice, probably due to storm damage somewhere in the supply chain, so they were stuck with candles for the time being.

So, with no power and nothing better to do, the Winchester boys were sitting on the couch in front of the fire eating cereal. It wasn't exactly dinner food, but they were starving and it was all the demons had in the pantry.

"Exorcizamus te," Sam said, out of the blue.

"What?" Dean asked, around the last of his Rice Krispies.

"Repeat it."

"Right now?"

"You got something better to do…?"

Dean pursed his lips. He didn't. "Exorcizamus te," he said, slowly.

"Omnis immundus spiritus," Sam prompted and Dean looked over at him, eyes glittering.

"You know, when this happened to Billy Madison, _his _teacher had an outfit on."

A smile touched his lips, but Sam didn't look up from his cornflakes. "I'm _not_ wearing an outfit, Dean."

"You sure?"

"So _very_ sure."

Dean shrugged, still smiling. It was worth a try.

"Omnis immundus spiritus," Sam pressed, twirling his spoon in the air in a 'hurry up' gesture.

"Omnus immundus spiritus," Dean repeated - well, kind of, anyway.

Sam shook his head. "Omn_is_. Not omn_us_."

"Omn_is_ immundus spiritus," Dean said again, enunciating the hell out of each syllable.

"Right," Sam smiled. His pronunciation wasn't stellar, but it would get the job done. "Now the whole line."

Dean took a deep breath, concentrating. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus."

It wasn't pretty, but it was technically correct. Sam set him empty bowl on the coffee table, then leaned over and kissed him. His big brother's lips were covered in a thin layer of sugar - Dean liked to dump half the sugar bowl on his cereal - so he tasted vaguely sweet.

"I don't know how you're not in a sugar coma," Sam chided him.

"You once told me I had marshmallow lips. Why shouldn't they be sweet?" Dean grinned. Sam rolled his eyes, but he leaned in for another kiss and sucked all the remaining sugar off his lips before they moved onto the next line.

The kissing at the end of every successfully-completed line of the exorcism helped keep Dean relaxed, and before long it started to flow. He had the first verse down in ten minutes, and the second one even faster. Sam loved hearing the words - pronounced correctly - coming out of Dean's mouth, and the 'reward' at the end of each line was starting to get deeper and longer.

"Me saying this Latin over and over gets you hot, doesn't it?" Dean said knowingly, when Sam pulled back from yet another long kiss.

Sam shrugged, running a hand back over his hair and pushing it out of his face. "I like the way the words sound when they come out of your mouth."

"You just like my mouth, Sammy."

"So say it again." Sam smiled, not even bothering to try and deny it. He took his brother's almost-empty cereal bowl and set it on the coffee table, then straddled Dean's thighs right up high on his quads, hips almost touching his big brother's. "Well? What are you waiting for?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

"Not that I don't enjoy this, but Rituale Romanum 101 doesn't work so well if I'm distracted," Dean pointed out, settling his hands on his baby brother's hips. Sam sitting across him like this was not likely to improve blood flow to his brain.

"You've gotta be able to do it under pressure," Sam told him. If Dean could remember the Rituale while most of the blood in his body was trying to dive down below his belt, then Sam's work here was done.

"Yeah, something's gonna be under pressure all right," Dean chuckled, adjusting his position on the couch a little. "You know, if I'd known a little Latin had this effect on you, I would've learned it years ago!" He hadn't gotten it perfect front-to-back yet, but Christ, he wanted to. He could guess what the reward at the end was going to be.

"So show me. Say it." Sam wound his arms around Dean's neck and looked at him expectantly.

Dean took a deep breath and gave it a shot - his pronunciation still wasn't awesome, but it was getting better, and he only stumbled a couple of times.

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,  
>Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii,<br>Omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.

Ergo, draco maledicte.  
>Ecclesiam tuam securi tibi facias libertate servire,<br>Te rogamus, audi nos."

"Not bad." Sam leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the lips, but pushed Dean back into the couch when he tried to deepen it. "Once more," he added, hands resting palm-down on Dean's pecs.

"Sam…!" Dean groaned, but the look Sam gave him made it clear he wasn't getting anything until he said it again, so he did - all the way through, perfectly, and with decent pronunciation to boot.

Sam smiled and gave him another kiss. "Now was that so hard?"

"No, but I've got something that is."

Dean planted both hands on his chest and shoved Sam off him. He was on his feet in a second and immediately pushed him back against the nearest wall, pressing his body hard up against Sam's as he kissed him.

He felt Sam's lips part under his, letting his tongue past. He held Sam against the wall, his hips unconsciously grinding against his brother's - he was hard, Dean could feel it, but his jeans were in the way and it took him a couple of seconds to get them undone.

Dean suddenly turned Sam around and shoved him against the wall, pushing his cheek against the textured wallpaper as he pulled the offending jeans down. Sam kicked them away as Dean tore his own off, briefly kissing the back of his baby brother's neck as he and pressed up close behind him.

"Is this because I called you a slut earlier?" Sam panted. He felt something hot and hard brush against him, and Dean sucked in a quick breath as he pushed his hips back to trap it between them.

"Lil bit, yeah," Dean breathed, and the younger Winchester's lips turned up in a smile. That was fine with him.

He heard Dean spit into his palm, then sucked in a quick breath of his own as he felt the smooth, hard head of his cock rub up and down between his ass cheeks a few times. Then, slick with saliva and precum and without a word of warning, he pushed inside.

It was easier this time, but there was still an initial flash of hot, stinging pain as he slipped in, and Sam couldn't help but groan. Eyes closed, he let his forehead rest against the wall and took some long, slow breaths while he waited for the pain to fade.

Dean laid a hand on Sam's side, watching the big muscles moving in his shoulders as he sucked in those deep breaths, absently rubbing a soothing hand rhythmically up and down his lower back. It took every shred of his self-control not to bury his entire length as deep and hard as he possibly could into the hot, velvety heat of Sam's body _right the fuck then_, but he resisted - Sam loved being on the bottom, and he enjoyed it rougher than Dean would ever tolerate, but he always gave him a minute to adjust before he got down to business. It was no fun if Sam was in pain.

He kept up that soothing lower back massage until he felt Sam relax, then pushed forward with his hips until he was buried literally balls-deep in his baby brother and he could feel the smooth, soft skin of Sam's backside pressed against his pelvis. He drew back slowly and smiled as Sam let out a low moan, his nails leaving gouges in the wallpaper as his hands curled into fists.

Dean looped one arm around his midsection and with the other hand grasped Sam by the jaw and turned his head to kiss him. He held Sam's back hard against his chest as he began to thrust into him, plundering his mouth with his tongue like he was trying to touch his soul, muffling his baby brother's cries of pleasure.

Sam stretched back to tug on Dean's hamstring, trying to get him to go harder, but his big brother was holding him so tight he couldn't reach it.

"Dean," he breathed, when there was a momentary break in the kiss.

"Mmm?" Dean murmured, without interrupting his rhythm.

"Harder."

Dean chuckled and laid a couple of soft love bites on the sensitive skin of his neck, drawing a few small, gasping moans. "Now who's the slut?" he whispered, close to Sam's ear - he could hear the smile in his big brother's voice.

"Then treat me like one," he whispered back, "and fuck me harder."

Dean released his grip and Sam leaned forward with his hands spread on the rough wallpaper, arching his back and grinding his ass against Dean's hips with a low, throaty growl, pushing him in as deep as he could go. So, Dean gripped the younger Winchester's hips like a vice, kissed the back of his neck, and went for it.

He thrust into Sam as hard, deep and fast as he wanted, forcing the younger Winchester to brace himself against the wall. At some point Dean managed to find just the right angle and hit that sweet spot deep inside his baby brother, over and over.

He dimly noticed Sam swaying a little as his legs went to jelly, but he didn't stop. Wild horses couldn't make him stop while Sam was making those little keening, moaning noises and arching his back like that, the big muscles moving under skin covered in fine droplets of sweat that glittered gold in the firelight, making the lines of his back and the firm, round globes of his ass stand out...

Dean leaned in, intending to give him a little love bite where his neck met his shoulder, but bit down hard enough to hurt. Sam let out a little cry and tensed, his body pulling in tight around Dean, and that was enough to send him over the edge.

Every muscle in his body went taut, his breath caught in his throat, and he buried himself as deep inside his baby brother as he physically could just as he came. Sam felt Dean's fingers digging into his hips hard enough to bruise, and heard the series of short groans that told him it was all over.

Dean rubbed one hand up and down Sam's lower back as he slowed his pace right down, breathing hard. He leaned in and rested his forehead against the back of Sam's neck, placing soft kisses on the flushed, wet skin and enjoying the way his hair tickled as it brushed his face.

Sam turned around, the hot skin of his back resting against the cool wallpaper, and Dean kissed him gently, letting Sam hold him close with hands on his hips. He rested his forehead against his little brother's, pausing the kiss to take a few deep, panting breaths.

"Sorry I bit you," he breathed.

Sam chuckled. "Hey, it's a compliment, right?"

Dean laughed, and pressed his lips briefly against Sam's. "Yeah, I couldn't help myself," he teased.

"You've got a long history of not being able to help yourself where I'm concerned," Sam shot back good-naturedly.

Dean chuckled and nipped gently at his lower lip. "You're always the one that starts it," he pointed out.

"I'd like to finish it," Sam whispered, grinding his hard, leaking cock against Dean's hip.

"Would you now." Dean didn't sound enthusiastic, but he let Sam push him gently back towards the thick, soft rug in front of the fireplace.

"I think it's my turn - don't you?" Sam gave him another kiss and then one last push down onto the floor. The rug was some kind of long-pile natural fibre that actually felt quite nice on his knees.

"Okay." Dean exhaled slowly. He wouldn't ever bottom for anyone besides Sam, and even then it wasn't his favourite thing, but he could do it. It was probably his turn, after all…

He waited, but instead of getting down onto the floor, Sam stayed standing in front of him. "You're not gonna…?" Dean looked up at him, confused.

"Look, I know you don't love bottoming, and I can wait for that." Sam smiled and reached down to run a fingertip along Dean's deliciously pouty, bee-stung lower lip. "But I _dream_ about that mouth of yours," he said, his voice lower and breathier.

"Do you just." Dean's lips turned up into a smile as he reached up to stroke the sensitive skin at the top of Sam's left thigh. He liked that idea _much_ better. "Gotta warn you, I'm a little rusty on the deep-throat," he chuckled, settling down to sit on his heels.

"Well you'll just have to practice," Sam replied, without missing a beat. He put a hand on the back of Dean's head and held him still while he ran the hot, hard tip of his cock along his lips, leaving a gleaming trail of precum. Dean smiled, running his tongue slowly and sensually across his lips and licking them clean, enjoying the way Sam exhaled in a breathy little moan as he watched.

Dean started slow, wrapping a hand around Sam's hot, hard cock and working it slowly back and forth a few times before he pulled all the soft, loose skin back from the smooth head so he could run his tongue slowly all the way around.

Dean looked up at Sam from under his eyelashes, swirling his tongue around it like he was licking an ice cream cone, and watched his reaction. If he could've, Dean would have smiled. Judging from that half-lidded gaze and the expression of bliss on Sam's face, he was doing fine.

A strangled little moan fell from Sam's lips and he let his head fall back as he felt the wet heat of Dean's mouth all around him, his soft lips eventually closing just behind the head. Dean pulled back slowly, making sure to touch every square millimetre, and Sam reached down and grabbed a handful of his short hair as he started to work back and forth up and down his length.

Dean laid one hand on his backside to keep him close and reached up with the other to stroke a finger along the seam behind Sam's balls. He was rewarded with a groan as Sam reflexively thrust his cock deeper, almost down into his throat.

Dean wasn't prepared for that, and almost choked at first. Sam grunted and attempted to pull back, but Dean locked his hand on that tight, toned ass and pressed forward instead, taking Sam's entire length into his mouth and down on into his throat. His baby brother wasn't small, and it stretched his jaw and his throat wide open, but he did it - he only stopped pushing forward when his nose touched the soft, smooth skin of Sam's abdomen.

Dean swallowed reflexively around him a couple of times, and felt Sam shudder as he literally went weak at the knees. He moaned something that sounded like "God, that's good", followed by a few more breathy words that Dean couldn't make out. He knew how good this felt and he would have loved to hold it there longer, but his lungs were starting to burn and he pulled back slowly, keeping a firm grip on Sam's backside, listening to him groan as he slid free.

After his deep-throat performance it_ didn't take long, and Sam groaned and wound a hand into Dean's short hair as he came. _Dean swallowed every last musky, salty drop and barely had time to suck his baby brother clean before he collapsed onto the floor, sprawled out on the rug in front of the fire with a lazy, satisfied smile. His chest was heaving, and there were rosy red patches high on his cheeks - he looked exhausted, like _he'd_ been the one doing all the hard work.

"It's getting late. We should probably set up the sofa bed," Dean said, watching on with an amused expression on his face. Sam looked like he'd just run a marathon.

Sam laughed breathlessly, stretching out and folding his hands behind his head. The golden firelight created all sorts of intriguing shadows on his hard, glistening body. "You're welcome to start," he offered. "I'll help as soon as my legs stop feeling like they're made of Jell-O."

Dean smiled and reached out to brush a few stray hairs from his face. "Sammy, if you can stand, then I didn't do it right."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The first rays of dawn were just touching the horizon when Sam woke up the following morning. He was laying on the sofa bed under a blanket, wrapped up in Dean's arms with his brother's head nestled into the nape of his neck by his shoulder. And he could smell smoke.

Sam started and sat up, and immediately started coughing. His throat was burning, and he grabbed a t-shirt lying over the back of the couch and slapped it over his mouth and nose. He looked around, and his eyes widened when he saw an ominous orange glow coming from the kitchen and the hallway.

Still coughing, he turned his attention back to Dean and shook him roughly by the shoulder. He stirred, but didn't wake - the air was rapidly thickening with smoke, and his breathing was strained and shallow. He was suffocating.

Sam didn't waste any time. He took a couple of deep breaths through the t-shirt then pulled Dean up into a sitting position and, with some considerable effort, slung him and the blanket over his shoulder and staggered through the smoky haze to the front door. He kicked it open, wincing at the shock on his bare foot, and it swung outwards so hard it smashed the decorative frosted glass window in the wall beside it.

His knees almost buckled as he stepped outside, and it was a struggle to get Dean down the steps to the safety of the driveway. It was just starting to get light, and the ever-present grey thunderclouds were still hovering overhead, but it wasn't raining.

Sam set Dean down on the wet gravel as gently as he could and turned him onto his side, wrapping him in the blanket before he checked his vital signs. His pulse and heart rate were good, and although there were black smears around his mouth and nose where he'd been breathing the smoky air, his lips and nail beds were a pretty normal colour and he was starting to breathe more normally.

Satisfied Dean wasn't in any immediate danger, he leaned forward, hands on his knees, sucking in deep breaths of clean, rain-washed air. He was a bit chilly, seeing as he was only wearing sweatpants, but he wasn't coughing so much now and his brain was starting to work again now he was out of mortal danger.

In front of them, the house wasn't completely engulfed yet. It was throwing off some serious heat, with the back and sides pretty well alight and the second storey getting that way, but the sitting room at the front where they'd been sleeping was still mostly just smoke.

_Too bad all our stuff was in there. _He winced as he thought about the duffels full of clothes, the laptop, their weapons…

"Fuck!" Sam exclaimed out loud, suddenly standing up straight. The fucking _Colt _was in there…!

He only considered it for about half a second. It wasn't even a choice, really - the Colt was the only card they had to play against the demons. If he was going to save Dean, he was going to need that gun.

He sprinted back up the stairs and in through the splintered front door, ignoring the plume of black smoke that was pouring out, and ran headlong into Hell.

The fire wasn't just an abstract glow in the distance anymore. The sitting room was well alight now, the back wall covered in bright orange flame, and the smoke was so thick he could barely see his hand in front of his face. If he didn't know exactly where he'd left the revolver the night before, he would never have been able to find it.

Sam made a beeline for the coffee table, and after a couple of half-blind grabs his hand grasped the cold metal of the Colt. He reached out and found a duffel bag at the end of the couch, threw the gun in, followed by John's journal, the Impala's keys and whatever else was within arm's reach, then slung it across his shoulder with a grunt of effort and turned to sprint back out.

He ran for the front door, a bright rectangle of early dawn light through the smoke, and almost made it. He just had enough time to focus on the demon in the doorway before he ran straight into the invisible wall she put up in front of him.

Sam ran into the unseen barrier with his left shoulder, and it exploded in pain as he fell back onto the cold tiles of the entrance hall. He lay there, winded and gasping for breath, still clutching the duffel as the brunette demon from yesterday peered down at him.

"Hi, Sam," she smiled, but there was nothing friendly in it. Sam just glared up at her - he didn't have the breath to speak.

"I'm gonna make this quick, 'cause I don't want this meatsuit char-grilled." She looked past him towards the lounge, where he'd been sleeping two minutes ago. It was completely engulfed now, and the flames were licking at the entrance hall.

"I'm not a Yellow Eyes loyalist, Sam," she said, almost regretfully. "I'm not interested in following you, even if you were inclined to lead - there's a new golden child now, and I'm hitching my wagon to hers. _We_ were hitching our wagon to hers." She smiled bitterly and kicked him in the side, hard.

"You boys took something from me, so now I'm going to take something from you." She sat on her haunches beside him, and when she continued her voice was so low he could barely hear it over the flames.

"Your brother is outside, right where you left him." She glanced pointedly at the front door, where the first rays of dawn were streaking in through the smoke. "And I just wanted you to know that when you've burned alive in here, I'm going to spend the foreseeable future torturing him to death before drag him into Hell myself. Think about that while you listen to the flesh sizzle off your bones."

Then she stood up, turned, and left him.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Dean woke up cold and alone. He was wearing only the boxer shorts he'd gone to sleep in, and he was tied to an old single bed frame that leaned up against a wall, wrists and ankles bound to the four corners. He coughed a few times, wondering briefly why his throat felt so raw, and peered out at his surroundings with bleary eyes. They were dry and gritty, and he had to blink a few times before he could see anything.

It was an anonymous abandoned building that looked like a warehouse of some kind - a vast concrete floor, regularly spaced metal I-beams holding up a pitched corrugated iron roof, with sections of translucent polycarbonate that lit up occasionally with flashes of lightning outside.

He was in a corner, with cinderblock walls to either side, including a four-foot square window in the adjacent wall to his right. He could hear the regular _drip_ _drip_ _drip_ off in that direction, once every few seconds, like the roof had sprung a leak. The whole place smelled damp and musty, but he could also smell a faint tinge of wood smoke on the air. He looked around, wincing as his mind ran off down a tangent where the torture required an open flame, but there were no fires to be seen.

Even with the skylights, the place was incredibly dim. He couldn't even see the opposite wall in the gloom. The big banks of fluorescent lights hanging from the rafters were dark, and the only illumination was the wan ambient light that made it through the clouds outside - it was still daylight, at least, but beyond that he couldn't tell what time it was.

Dean exhaled slowly and turned his attention to his own situation. He tested his bonds, but there was no joy there - they were only rope, but they were secure. Even the bedframe seemed to be lashed to the wall, because all the movement he got when he pulled at the corners was a little flex and some rattling of old bolts. It felt like a few of the old wooden slats were missing, but that was about all.

_Overkill, really,_ he thought. _None of our usual playmates are ever this thorough._

"Well look at that - he's awake." A pleased-sounding female voice came from the shadows to his left, low and sensual, smooth as butter.

Dean stiffened and fought the urge to look in that direction, keeping his gaze firmly ahead of him. He didn't need to look to identify the speaker, anyway.

"_You_," he sneered, as the brunette demon stepped smiling into the light. "You're the one that sabotaged my car."

She gave him an amused look, sauntering over to stand beside him, high heels clicking on the concrete. "Oh, come on. Really?_ That's_ what's eating at you?"

"_Nobody _touches my car, you black-eyed-"

Without warning she backhanded him, hard, snapping his head to the side. She grabbed him by the jaw, her hand gripping like a vice, and leaned in close enough that he could smell her perfume. Something rich and exotic that would ordinarily have enticed him in like a moth to a flame.

"Now, now, now. Don't say something I'm going to make you regret," she purred, her deep brown eyes burning into his. "And besides, you shot me." She abruptly let go of his jaw, shoving his head back into one of the slats. Dean glared back at her, but stayed quiet. He could taste blood, probably from a cut lip.

The demon stalked over to a battered old wooden desk that sat about seven or eight feet in front of him. There were a variety of objects and tools on its surface that Dean forced himself not to inspect too closely, but she bypassed all of those and instead went for a half-empty bottle of bourbon.

"You know, even after everything, I don't believe we've been properly introduced." She sat on the edge of the desk and took a casual swig, keeping her gaze on him, leaving red lipstick prints on the neck.

"Don't worry yourself. I'm okay with that," Dean interjected.

"I'm Tara," she continued, as if he hadn't spoken.

"Is that _your_ name, or the name of the poor girl you're wearing?" Dean asked, before he could stop himself. The demon's gaze turned hard and cold, but at least she didn't get up and hit him again.

"So it was your witch we were tracking in Hanover, right?" he went on, making a conscious effort to be civil. She was going to hurt him anyway, probably, but there was no reason to send her off the deep end right at the beginning. He had to be _able_ to get away when he worked out an escape plan, and she seemed like the type to cut off something he might need.

"It was," Tara replied, taking another drink.

"You killed her to cover your tracks?"

She nodded, swirling what remained of the bourbon around in the bottom of the bottle. "For all the good it did me. She was… emotional. Unstable. Killing three of your workmates is the kind of thing that draws attention, but she just couldn't grasp that."

Dean shifted uncomfortably in his bonds. "I don't mean to put ideas in your head, but why didn't you just kill _me_?"

That cold little smile touched the demon's glossy red lips again. "Oh, you don't get off that easy, honey. You boys took something from me and you're gonna pay for it."

Dean frowned slightly. "Well why am I here then?" he complained. "Sam's the one that killed your buddy."

She thumped the bottle back down onto the table, making the tools rattle, and Dean tried not to jump. "Her name was Rachel, and she was more than my buddy," Tara spat, all traces of her smile gone. Dean got the distinct impression he'd hit a nerve, but it took him a second to work it out.

"Oh, you're poking fun at me and Sam, but _you two_…?" he asked, incredulous. Blondie - Rachel, whatever - had evidently been something _more_ than a buddy.

"Yeah. We were." The demon's voice was low and intense, and her eyes clouded over black even as she stared back at him, like someone had just poured a pot of dark ink into clear water. It was creepy.

Dean let out a slow breath. This wasn't good. They'd pissed her off _personally_. This wasn't just the normal demon bloodlust, this was vengeance - and vengeance tended to hurt a lot more.

Dean's eyes tracked the demon as she turned back to the desk, his brain ticking over trying to figure a way out of here. She picked up the bourbon and took another long swig as a thunderclap rattled the windows of the warehouse, and Dean saw his chance. He whispered under his breath as softly as he could, praying the racket from the storm outside would give him the head-start he needed.

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus-"

He didn't even get the first line out before Tara gave a Jedi-like wave of her hand. That was followed by a sharp _snap_,and he was cut off by a piercing pain in his chest that stole the breath from his lungs. He tried to suck in more air to start again, but winced as his left side exploded in a fireball of pain. The hell-bitch had broken two of his ribs.

"How stupid do you think I am?" Dean could hear the smile in her voice before she even turned around. She came back towards him and he gave her a hard grimace of a smile, showing bloody teeth.

"You really want an answer to that?"

The demon smiled and leaned in, stroking his cheek gently with the tip of one long, red fingernail. "Try that again, sweetheart, and I'll rip out your tongue. We'll see how snarky you are then."

Dean glared, but shut his mouth. She might just do it to spite him.

"I guess it's time we get down to business, then." She pulled something out from behind her back and held it up so Dean could see - a pair of slightly rusted medieval-looking pincers that looked like they'd be more at home in a blacksmith's shop. Dean felt his heart skip a beat, but managed to keep his face impassive.

"It's clichéd, I know," Tara lamented, opening and closing the tool a few times. She did it one-handed, like she'd had practice. "Unfortunately, good quality instruments are hard to find these days." She locked one vice-like hand around his left wrist and pulled, breaking the rope, but not before it tore through a few layers of skin and gave Dean some fairly nasty rope-burn.

"I don't suppose there's anything I can do to change your mind?" Dean asked, his voice tense as he tried and failed to pull his hand back out of her grip. It was easy to forget just how strong demons were when they were wearing cute little brunette girls - he might as well have been locked down in irons.

"There's really only one thing you can do, sweetheart," she said, lining up the pincers with the tip of the fingernail on his little finger.

"What's that?" There was nothing Dean could do to stop this, so he steeled himself and looked away.

"Scream." She grabbed hold of his nail and pulled, but not quickly. She did it _agonisingly_ slowly, pulling the distal end up first, followed by the root a few long, torturous seconds later. The nail tore free of its bed with a long, wet ripping sound, and Dean managed to half-stifle his cry of pain.

He turned his head back to glare at the demon, deliberately keeping his eyes away from his left hand, each breath coming in a short, sharp gasp. "You evil, vindictive, Satan-fucking _whore_ of a-" he growled, but the demon ignored him.

"Nice nails you've got," she observed, holding up the pincers so Dean could see them. They still grasped his left pinkie nail, complete with scarlet blood droplets and even a few clinging fragments of skin and nail bed.

Dean growled again and tried pulling his hand away. Without even a hint of effort, the demon tightened her grip and there was an audible _crack_ as one of his metacarpals snapped. Dean let out a yelp, but the demon didn't release the pressure.

"I can crush your hand if you'd prefer," she said, intensely. Dean got the point and stopped struggling.

"There's a good boy." She opened the pincers and let his nail drop to the concrete floor, and the small clicking noise when it hit made Dean shudder.

As the demon lined up the pincers on the next nail, Dean had just enough time to wonder how this had gone so pear-shaped. Only hours ago, he'd been fucking Sam in front of an open fire - now he was tied up in a warehouse in the middle of God-knows where, with a demon pulling his fingernails off one by one, and he got the distinct impression that if his baby brother didn't turn up soon he was going to be punching Satan's time card a few months early.

Ten minutes later, all the fingernails from Dean's left hand lay on the floor in a small, bloody pile beside Tara's left boot. She stood in front of him wiping her pincers with a scrap of cloth, while Dean breathed in ragged gasps and stared daggers at her. His damaged hand - now tied securely back to the bedframe - ached and throbbed. She hadn't been gentle about it, and he could even feel tiny rivulets of blood snaking down his arm.

"So, Dean, I see I'm not the first one to try this." She touched a scar on his forearm, next to one of the fresh trails of blood, and Dean paled. He couldn't help it. He remembered the stinging pain as the broken Skylark window glass sliced into him all those years ago, the memory fresh and crisp as if it happened yesterday, and he found himself wishing she'd shut up and start tearing out more fingernails instead. It would hurt less.

"Daddy's little meltdown, right?" she whispered, tracing the long, thin line of scar tissue from his wrist, curling around behind to almost his elbow. Dean tried to pull his arm away, but the rope bit into his flesh and he had to let her.

"You know, I don't understand why you didn't you stab him in the heart the first chance you got."

Dean glared at her, trying to keep his breathing under control. "You really wanna have a deep and meaningful right now?"

The demon shrugged nonchalantly, but her eyes glittered. "It's just that I asked John the same question while he was staying with us downstairs, but he never gave me an answer."

Dean's breath caught in his throat as he thought about what horrifying things those hellspawn must have done to his father, but he covered it well. "You know, you're right." He bared his teeth in a hard smile. "You wouldn't understand."

Tara abruptly tightened her grip, her fingernails digging deep crescent-moon shaped wounds into Dean's forearm. He winced, and she smiled slowly as his blood began to drip onto the concrete floor.

"Humour me," she whispered, so close he could feel her bourbon-tinged breath on his cheek. Her nails dug deeper and she held up a little dagger so Dean could see it. It was only about four inches long, but wickedly sharp, and the implication was clear.

"Okay, fine," Dean took a halting breath. He got the message. "Fine. I'll tell you."

She kept smiling and suddenly released her grip, yanking her nails free of Dean's flesh. He shot her a glare, but she ignored him. She just crossed her arms over her chest and waited.

Dean took a deep breath and hesitated for a second, considering his response. He knew the answer to the demon's question, but that didn't mean it was easy to put into words.

"You want to know why I didn't try and get revenge on my dad," Dean sighed. It just felt_ wrong_, having a heart-to-heart with a frigging demon. "We kept hunting together after… after he did what he did, and yeah, there were times where I could've left him to get dragged into the shadows and eaten by the monsters. I'm sure he wondered if I was going to pull his ass out of the fire."

"And yet you did." The demon raised one perfectly-shaped eyebrow. She looked like she genuinely wanted to know the answer - like she couldn't fathom why Dean might do that.

"Don't get me wrong, I never _forgave_ the guy." Dean narrowed his eyes, his voice hard. "But he thought he was protecting Sam, and teaching me a lesson or whatever - he was _wrong_, but that's what he thought. He did the best he could." He paused, a little smile touching the corner of his mouth.

"Maybe he had a bad run and a few lapses of judgement, but hey, he did all right for sixteen years. And we eventually got the chocolates - we got the evil bastard that killed our mother. It was worth it."

The demon studied him, thinking that over. "So it's one of the sacrifices you think you made in this little vendetta of yours? You let him get away with what he did to you because he's your father? If my father attacked me like that I'd have his head on a pike." She paused, a smile touching her lips. "Well, he did, and I did just that. But that's beside the point."

Dean smirked at her. "See, this is what I mean - you'll never understand. People don't kill their parents. Only _monsters_ do that."

The demon gave him a cold, hard smile and, without any warning at all, drove her little knife hilt-deep into his right thigh. The pain took his breath away, but the demon just kept smiling.

"I should send you back to Hell - you need to practice. You're terrible at this," Dean gasped, and the demon actually laughed. She gave the knife a little twist, then pulled it out at an angle and savoured the resulting strangled cry of pain.

"Aw, don't worry honey - you're squealing just fine," she told him, then poured a shot of bourbon into the fresh wound. It felt like liquid fire and he clamped his teeth down on the cry of pain as she leaned in to whisper in his ear.

"You may want to think about your words before you open your mouth, though. You can hurt my feelings, but I can hurt _you_." Then she grabbed him by the throat and pulled, tearing the bedframe away from the wall and letting it - and Dean - drop onto the concrete.

The fall was short, but it felt like it happened in slow motion. He turned his face away from the onrushing concrete and generally tried to shield his head as much as possible, but the floor gave him a nasty crack to the side of the head that made him see stars. The impact of his chest on the floor and the weight of the bedframe pushing down knocked the breath out of him, and it took him half a minute to realise the demon was sitting on her haunches beside him.

He heard the _snap_ of a cigarette lighter coming to life, then the faint crackling of a newly-lit cigarette. He could just _feel_ her smiling, but he didn't move a muscle.

"You awake down there?" she asked, but Dean didn't answer.

_If she can't see me properly under the bedframe, maybe I'll get a few minutes' peace…_

The demon didn't ask again. She just touched the tip of her lit cigarette to the soft, smooth skin on the back of Dean's left shoulder.

There was no stifling this cry of pain. He screamed, and the demon laughed. He could feel the heat of the cigarette, hovering probably no more than an inch or two off his skin, and then there was a new searing pain just to the side of the last as she pressed the glowing tip against his skin again - harder, this time, and for a few seconds longer.

Dean screamed again, trying in vain to pull his hands free and get out from under the bedframe. It was pinning him to the ground, and he knew the missing slats offered vast expanses of his unprotected back for the demon to play with.

"What was it you were saying?" she asked dispassionately, touching the cigarette briefly to the skin over his spine. He let out a grunt of pain and she repeated the action, scorching another little red circle just below the first.

"I need to practice, right?" The demon touched the cigarette to a third spot, and then a fourth. She was drawing a dotted line right down the centre of his spine.

"Do you want me to keep practicing, Dean?" Her voice was hard now, and when she pressed the cigarette against his skin this time, she held it there.

Dean let out a cry full of frustration and pain, still pulling at his bonds, but he wasn't having any success. "You know it fucking hurts!" he swore.

"Yeah, I bet it does." The demon laughed softly and drew back the cigarette. Point made, she lifted the bedframe by a corner, pushing it back against the wall with a _clang_.

"Sam's coming for me, you know," Dean told her darkly, following her with his eyes as she walked back to stand in front of him.

"Oh, I wouldn't count on that." The demon smiled and tossed the half-burned cigarette onto the floor, where she ground it out with the toe of her boot.

"Really? And what makes you so confident?" Dean asked, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor. There was a nasty cut on the inside of his cheek that just refused to stop bleeding.

The demon stayed quiet, that knowing little smile on her lips, and Dean felt a little flutter of uncertainty in his stomach. The hell-bitch looked like the cat that got the canary, and in his experience, that didn't work out well for the canary.

"What did you do?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Haven't you been wondering how I got to you?" she asked brightly.

Dean stayed quiet. He had been, actually, but he wasn't about to tell her that.

"I couldn't get into the house, so I needed you to come to me." She paused for effect, watching Dean's reaction closely. "So, I set the old place on fire while you were sleeping and your brother just brought you right out."

Dean visibly quailed, and the demon smiled. "He was quite the hero - literally carried you out to safety. Has a nice symmetry, I suppose."

"Where is he?" Dean asked, low and intense. He was starting to get a very bad feeling about this.

"He ran right back into the flames, you know - he really, really wanted to save that antique peashooter of yours. Can't imagine why," the demon said lightly. As if she didn't know _exactly _why he fucking wanted it.

Dean closed his eyes and exhaled, putting it together. Sam had gone back in for the Colt because it was their only weapon against the demons. The only thing they had to fight with that might let them break his deal.

Dean had to admit, it explained a lot of things. The smoke smell, his gritty eyes, sore throat… and why Sam hadn't broken down the door yet. The only reason he wouldn't mount a rescue mission was because he _couldn't_.

"Dangerous business, running into burning buildings. The kind of thing you don't come out of," Tara continued, and Dean's eyes snapped open. He stared at the demon, tears blurring his vision as he searched her face for any clue she might be lying.

"I don't believe you," he told her, but he didn't sound convincing even to his own ears. He couldn't accept that. He couldn't wrap his head around the idea that, after everything they'd gone through, his baby brother was… was…

"Whatever makes you feel better, sugar," she smiled. She could see he knew - it was written all over his face. And she was loving every second.

"Honestly, it doesn't matter to me if you believe he's dead or not. We've got business of our own." She hit him across the face again, snapping his head to the side and opening up a gash over his left cheekbone. "After I get my pound of flesh - literally or figuratively, I haven't decided yet - we're going on a little trip downstairs."

Dean felt it when she hit him and he could hear what she was saying, but it all seemed very far away. He didn't care about that. If she was telling the truth and Sam was dead, then it none of it mattered. She could ride him into Hell like a frigging pony if she wanted, because he had no reason to stay here anymore.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The sun was going down outside when the demon put down her last instrument and stood a few feet back from Dean, hand on her hip as she regarded him.

Dean had been wondering how it was going to end, and he raised his head with some effort to peer at the demon through his right eye - his left cheekbone was fractured, and that eye was swollen almost shut. He was a bloody mess, covered in cuts and bruises and burns, hanging from his bonds like a rag doll.

"Well, Dean, it's been fun, but it's time we headed downstairs."

The demon's black eyes were all but glittering as she extended her right hand towards him. She closed her hand almost theatrically slowly, her eyes burning into his, and he felt a corresponding crushing pressure on his neck almost like she was choking him from the inside.

It didn't hurt as much as someone wrapping their hands around his throat and actually physically choking him, but it was just as effective. His chest burned as his muscles worked reflexively, trying to expand his lungs, but he got nothing. He couldn't get any air at all, and he knew he should have been terrified, but he just _wasn't_. He was ready for it to be over.

_So, this is it._ _I learned the frigging Rituale for nothing._ Despite his situation, a small, fleeting smile touched the corners of his mouth. _Well, it was worth it to get into Sam's pants. _

It was storming again, and he looked out at the trees whipping in the wind and driving rain, punctuated by flashes of lightning and rolling thunder that shook the windows in their frames. It seemed like a better last image than looking into those bottomless black pits of eyes.

He saw two flashes of lightning before his vision started to close in at the edges. The tunnel got narrower and darker and all his pain ebbed away as his brain started to shut down, scrounging every last molecule of oxygen it could to keep him alive. His eyelids were getting heavy, and he let them fall closed.

_It would've been nice to go out in a blazing fireball of glory and take a few dozen of those hellspawn with me. _He would especially have liked to get this one - the one that watched Sam die - but that just wasn't in the cards.

_And anyway, once he finds out what happened here, Bobby's gonna hunt this bitch down._ It was a struggle to put the words together now and maintain his train of thought, but that one made Dean smile again._ She doesn't have long left._

Dean was still enjoying the notion of what Bobby would do to this black-eyed bitch when the crushing pressure on his neck suddenly disappeared.

There was an almost painful sensation as the blood rushed up into his brain, and he sucked in a deep, reflexive breath which immediately started him coughing and retching. His eyes flew open and tried to focus, but it was like waking up in a dark room and it took a few seconds for his vision to come back.

When it did, he saw the demon grinning back at him. She looked like she was laughing, but he couldn't hear it over the sound of rushing blood and his racing heart pounding in his ears.

Even in his oxygen-deprived state, it was immediately obvious to Dean what she was doing. She wasn't quite ready to call it quits - she intended to draw this out, choking him mostly to death as many times as she could before he either had a stroke or she decided to end it.

"You bitch," he rasped - or at least, tried to. It didn't really sound anything like that, coming out of his bruised throat. The demon got the message, though it just seemed to make her smile wider.

"Oh, you didn't think I was just going to let it _end_, did you?" she laughed, genuinely amused. "I'm supposed to have you delivered by sundown, but it's not sundown just yet, sugar."

Dean could hear her now that the roar of blood in his ears was dying down and he half expected her to clap her hands with glee, she looked so pleased with herself.

He let his head fall back against the slats and stared up at the roof, ignoring the way his neck protested when he moved. Wasn't it enough that she'd inflicted all those other tortures on him already, and that there were more, worse ones waiting when he got downstairs? Couldn't she just let him _go_?

"It's nothing personal, Dean." She leaned in and whispered in his ear, like she was telling secrets. "I just really, really like this part." Then she stood back and extended her hand out towards him again.

Dean lost count of how many times she choked him. She would bring him right to the edge of unconsciousness, then just at the point where everything went black, she'd release the pressure and let him get his breath. She did it over and over and over again, taking him to the edge and then bringing him back, smiling and laughing the whole time.

He could hardly focus when she loosened her grip the last time, and it was hard to make out more than a shadowy silhouette in the faint twilight, but he saw it as she pulled on a pair of black leather gloves. She picked something up off the table, but she had to come all the way over to stand in front of him before he could see what she had in her hand.

It was a strand of high gauge wire, about three feet long. It wasn't quite piano wire, but it was almost as thin, and Dean let out a soft sigh. _This_ was it. This was how it was going to end.

For once, the demon didn't say anything. She just smiled as she looped the wire around his neck so it crossed at the front of his throat, the ends wrapped around her gloved hands. She wanted to be close to watch the light go out in his eyes, but evidently didn't want to damage her meatsuit while she choked the life out of him.

The demon was strong, and the wire hurt when she pulled it tight. It cut cruelly into Dean's flesh as it choked off his air and the blood to his brain, but he didn't fight it and the black tunnel closed in fast. This time was going to be the last time, for sure, and he felt a flutter in his chest that had nothing to do with his imminent suffocation. This was _it_, and where he was going there was no way he was going to see Sam again.

Dean let his eyes fall closed, remembering Sam sitting across him. He was on the bed in a fleabag motel room, leaning against the bedhead with soft pillows at his back. Sam was straddling his thighs, one of those big hands resting on his bare chest as the other caressed his cheek, and Dean could feel the warmth of his smooth, hard chest press against him as he leaned in for a kiss - one of those soft, gentle ones that Sasquatch shouldn't be able to pull off…

"Dean."

_Sam._ He could even hear the kid's voice, and it made him smile. As last moments go, that was a nice one.

"Dean?"

_God, it sounds so much like him, too…_

"Dean!" There was a sharp smack on his left cheek, and his eyes flew open.

Dean realised a few things in quick succession. Firstly, the crushing pressure was gone from around his neck and he could _breathe_.

Second, although he was still in that Godforsaken warehouse, he wasn't tied up anymore. He was lying flat on his back on the cold concrete floor, and someone was leaning over him.

He blinked a couple of times, squinting and trying to clear the lingering fog from his vision. After a few torturously-long seconds, the looming figure started to come into focus.

"Sam." Dean's voice came out in a hoarse, rasping whisper, but the relief in it was evident. He tried to reach up to touch Sam, to see if he was real, but as soon as he moved his broken ribs exploded into agony and his arms dropped back to his sides accompanied by a grunt of pain.

"For the love of God, don't move," Sam told him, pressing down slightly on Dean's shoulder and grimacing a little himself when his hand came away bloody. He looked confused when Dean's face broke into a smile.

"Hurts too much to be a dream," Dean breathed, still smiling. The fact that he was in this much pain meant this _must _be real.

Sam rolled his eyes and sat back on his heels, rubbing his hand across his lips to wipe away smudges of bloody saliva from around his mouth.

"This really the time for us to be making out, Sammy…?" Dean croaked. It was a miracle he could speak at all, but he still managed to be a smartass.

"I was giving you CPR, you jackass," Sam told him, but he was smiling now too. "She choked you out."

Dean blinked and looked around, wincing as he moved his neck. He saw the demon lying on the floor nearby, motionless, and his brain suddenly kicked back into gear.

"What happened? Is she dead?" he rasped. Then, more urgently, "Where's the Colt?"

Sam held up the gun for Dean's benefit, then tucked it back into the pocket of his jacket. "Demon's not dead - I couldn't shoot her without hitting you. I had to improvise, but don't worry, she's not going anywhere."

Dean held up his right hand, and Sam helped him sit up. It enticed fresh stabs of agony from all his injuries and made his already-throbbing head start spinning too, but he did it anyway.

"You okay?" Sam asked, concerned. Dean gave him a pointed look with the eye that wasn't swollen nearly shut, holding his arm to his injured ribs.

"Right." Sam nodded, giving himself a mental head-slap. Of course he wasn't okay.

"So, what's her deal?" Dean whispered, looking over at the demon. She was about six feet away, and not moving. He squinted, trying to make out more detail with his still-blurry vision, but he could have sworn...

"Sam, is that a _stake_ sticking out of her back?"

"Yeah." Sam shrugged, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Carved a quick devil's trap on the end of a broken piece of wood and stabbed her in the spine with it while she was concentrating on you. She can't move, but she can't smoke out either."

"Very sneaky, Buffy."

Sam smiled and helped Dean struggle to his feet. "I've been wanting to try that one for a while." He paused while Dean got his balance, then turned to look at the demon as he pulled the Colt out of his pocket.

"No, no, no - wait." Dean put a hand on his arm. "This one's mine."

Sam looked puzzled, but waved a hand in an 'after you' gesture. Dean took the gun and shambled a few steps closer to stand over the immobilised demon - there was indeed a piece of wood sticking out of her upper back, high between her shoulder blades. She was conscious and she glared up at him out of the corner of her eye, almost palpable waves of contempt coming off her.

_That has to hurt like hell,_ Dean thought to himself, and a little smile played over his chapped, bloody lips.

"I told you I'd send you back to Hell, you sabotaging, mouthy bitch," he growled.

"Fine. Send me back," she spat, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth onto the concrete. "When I claw my way out again, and I _will_, the first thing on my to-do list will be to peel the meat from your boyfriend's bones while you watch. Then, when I'm done with -"

She was cut off mid-sentence when Dean wordlessly raised the Colt and put a round into her back, just below the stake. She lit up from the inside with that orange light, flickering over her skin in waves as her body tensed and her eyes widened in disbelief.

"For the love of God, _shut up_…!" Dean complained, exasperated. The body twitched once more then went still, and he sank down to sit on the cold concrete floor. Now that it was _over_, his legs didn't have it in them to hold him up any more.

"Thought you might wanna break out the Latin for that one," Sam observed, taking the gun when Dean offered it back to him. "You did learn it, after all."

Dean shook his head, eyes on the dead demon in front of him. "When she got outta Hell, she was gonna follow through. She and Blondie were dating."

"Wait - and they were making fun of _us_?" Sam said indignantly. Dean just smiled up at him from his spot beside the corpse.

By the time Sam disposed of the body in the woods outside, it had stopped raining. He went back to get Dean, who was sitting on the corner of the desk, and found all the demon's instruments were on the floor behind it like he'd swept them off the table top. Sam didn't blame him - most of them were still stained with his blood.

Sam helped him up and got his big brother's right arm around his shoulder. Dean held his other arm close to his broken ribs, and although Sam knew it had to hurt like hell, he didn't complain as they went slowly out through a small side door.

"Where the hell are we, anyway?" Dean asked, squinting against the late afternoon light as he looked around. There were a handful of old warehouse-type buildings much like the one he'd been held in, and apart from a battered old asphalt road leading away into the trees there wasn't much else to be seen.

"Abandoned industrial estate outside town," Sam replied. "This and an old sawmill were just about the only places nearby she could go without crossing the flooded bridge, so I figured she'd be here." He didn't say anything further.

"So, she told me she left you in the burning house. How did you get out?" Dean asked, after a moment of silence. It hadn't escaped his notice that Sam had a bandage over his left forearm, from just below his elbow up under his shirt sleeve. He wasn't using that arm to support Dean and he held it like it was sore.

Sam grimaced. "Yeah, she did. Local cops were coming to check on the bridges when they saw the smoke and hauled ass. They pulled me out of the house at the last second," he said. He didn't volunteer any further information, but before Dean could needle him further, they rounded the corner of the building where Sam had parked the car.

Where Dean expected to see the Impala, there was instead a beaten-up, ancient old Jeep that looked like it was older than both of them. Combined.

"So whose is this?" Dean asked, vaguely amused.

Sam flushed a little. "The cops insisted on giving me a ride into town. I raided the Impala's trunk for clothes and weapons, so I didn't need to go, but I couldn't exactly get them to bring me _here_. So I needed wheels that would get me back past the flood." He let Dean lean against the rear quarter panel while he got the back door open.

"Hey, you don't have to convince me," Dean told him. "I've always been of the opinion you don't steal enough cars, Sammy," he added, gritting his teeth as he started to climb up into the back seat. Sam winced and put out a hand to help, but Dean swatted it away. He struggled up into the 4x4 and lay down across the seat, pale and covered in a sheen of sweat, taking short, rapid breaths.

"You okay?" Sam asked, and Dean gave him a shaky thumbs-up.

"Will be," he croaked. "But next time I get kidnapped and tortured by demons, can you pick a rescue vehicle a little closer to the ground?"

Sam rolled his eyes as he shut the door, but he was smiling. Dean was going to be fine.

It was dark when they got back to the motel, but Dean was pleased to find the Impala waiting in the carpark where the tow truck dropped her off.

"Thought I was never going to see you again, baby," he breathed, running a hand lovingly along the generous curve of her rear end. Sam was sure there was a one-liner in there somewhere, but he was too tired to ferret it out. It had been a _long_ day.

"I call the first shower," Dean said, as Sam shoved their door open.

"You gonna be okay by yourself?"

That got a smile from Dean. "I'd love you to come with me, Sammy, but I actually need to get clean today," he replied, with a wink, and headed into the bathroom.

His torn and bloodied boxers went straight into the bin, and he paused briefly to check out his wounds in the mirror. They hurt, and they weren't pretty, but on the whole they weren't really serious. Most of them would probably barely even leave a scar, if they were cleaned and dressed properly. It could have been much, much worse.

"I told you, sweetheart - you were terrible at it," Dean said to no-one in particular, and turned away to start the shower.

As it turned out, it was a pretty quick one. Even lukewarm, the water stung his wounds and burns and he only stayed under it long enough to rinse off most of the blood and sweat. He got out and gingerly dried off a little, then wrapped the towel around his waist with a little difficulty - it was hard with a broken hand. He got it secured, though, and had just started to push the door open when he saw Sam standing in front of the mirrored closet door by the beds.

The younger Winchester had pulled his shirt off, and was wincing as he checked out his arm in the mirror. There were fresh white bandages covering what were obviously burns over most of the surface of his upper arm and around the back of his shoulder, which was badly bruised from running into the demon's invisible wall. The point of his shoulder was obviously swollen and the skin was turning shades of blood red and port wine.

"Just in the nick of time, huh?" Dean rasped, pushing the bathroom door open.

Sam started and turned to see Dean watching him. He turned back to the mirror without a word.

"You okay…?" Dean pressed, as he shambled out into the room.

"Yeah," Sam sighed, pulling his shirt back on over the bandages. "It hurts, but the burns aren't bad and the paramedics don't think anything's broken," he replied, matter-of-factly.

Dean sat gingerly down on the end of the bed. "So you ran back in for the Colt?" he asked. Sam nodded wordlessly, deliberately avoiding Dean's eyes as he did up his buttons.

"That was stupid, Sam," Dean sighed. "You've gotta be _smarter_ than that."

"Yeah, well, excuse me for not giving up." Sam's face was turned away from him, but Dean heard the pain in his voice.

"It's not worth your life," Dean told him, making an effort to keep his voice calm. "I made that deal so you could _have_ one, not throw it away running into burning buildings."

"What if I don't want one? What if there's no point without you?" Sam shot back.

When Dean didn't return fire with a retort of his own, Sam turned to look at him. He was staring off into the distance, lips pursed, with a pained look on his face.

"She told me that you were in the house when it burned, you know," he said quietly.

It took a second for it to dawn on him, but as soon as Sam realised what Dean was saying, the head of steam he'd built up on his anger just evaporated. He understood a little about what it was like to lose your reason to live.

"She told me she was going to torture me to death and drag me down into the Pit, and I didn't care. If you really were in that house when it burned down and you…" Dean trailed off and took a long breath, looking down at the nondescript, gunmetal grey carpet. He couldn't quite bring himself to say the words.

"I gave up, Sam. I couldn't go through that again. If you were gone, she could do whatever she wanted to me because there was no point fighting anymore." Dean looked up to find Sam looking back with one of his patented emotional, dew-eyed expressions, and immediately looked away again. If the kid actually started crying, he didn't think he could get the words out.

"Look, I get it, okay? I understand why you're so hell-bent on saving me, and I understand why you ran back in for the Colt." He paused and took as deep a breath as his ribs would let him. "But you can't sacrifice yourself. I won't let you."

"So I'm just supposed to let _you _do it?" Sam asked, his voice thick.

"I don't want _either one _of us to make the sacrifice." Dean paused, chewing on his bottom lip, and when he continued his voice was very soft. "I don't wanna die, Sammy."

There was a pause as Sam drew in a deep breath. It seemed like he'd been waiting forever for Dean to say that. "Will you let me save you now?" he asked.

"No more burning buildings, okay?" Dean replied, with a small smile.

Sam couldn't help it - he smiled back. "Well, then you're not allowed to get kidnapped by demons again."

"Deal." Dean pushed himself up off the bed and enfolded Sam in a hug, as tight as he could manage. It felt good to have Sam's warm, firm body pressed close, and when he leaned in for a kiss Dean gave it to him, if somewhat gingerly.

"We've gotta clean these," Sam said, and touched a finger to Dean's split lower lip. He was covered in a myriad of other cuts and abrasions that were going to need attention, too.

"Way to kill the mood, Florence," Dean groaned, but permitted Sam to sit him on the bed. "Can you at least start with my back so I can lay down?" he asked, as Sam came over with a bowl of warm Dettol solution and a pile of clean gauze pads.

"I suppose you've earned a bit of R&R," Sam conceded, smiling as he sat cross-legged behind Dean on the bed. His smile faded when he saw what was in front of him.

Dean's back was a mess. Besides all the old scars, both from John and a life of hunting things with teeth and claws, new wounds literally covered the skin all the way from his lower back to his shoulders - cigarette burns, small knife wounds just deep enough to hurt, plus parallel bands of scrapes and bruises from the rough wooden slats of the bedframe. There were even splinters still embedded under the skin.

"Jesus, Dean," Sam breathed.

"Just get on with it, will you?" Dean told him, shifting uncomfortably. He didn't like people fussing over him when he was hurt - he didn't like medical attention of any kind, really, and he certainly didn't want a running commentary. "It's not exactly a picnic, sitting here with broken ribs."

Sam sighed, dipping a gauze pad into the bowl, and Dean tensed as he waited for the sting. He felt something warm and wet touch the back of his left shoulder, just where it met his neck, and winced as the antiseptic irritated one of his numerous cigarette burns. It stung like crazy for a couple of seconds, but then Sam leaned in and placed a soft, soothing kiss on the unmarked skin beside it - then a second, and then a third.

Some of the tension went out of Dean's shoulders, and Sam smiled. He placed another kiss next to the next burn before he touched it, and was pleased to see Dean's breathing stay slow and steady. The older Winchester sat still and relaxed, eyes closed, and let Sam continue cleaning his wounds, trailing gentle kisses along beside the injuries as he went through gauze pads one after another.

"So, what did you see?" Sam asked, as he dabbed at a knife wound on Dean's lower back.

"Mmm?" he murmured, as Sam laid another soft kiss on the point of his shoulder. He was _really_ enjoying that.

Sam tossed out another square of gauze, adding it to the small, bloodied pile in the bin beside the bed. "She had you dead to rights, Dean - you all but crossed over. What was it like?"

Dean sighed, considering that for a second. "Well, it wasn't hellfire and brimstone," he said, slowly.

"So what then?" Sam raised his eyebrows, but tried not to sound surprised. "White light, angels singing…?"

Dean nearly choked, and winced when his ribs stabbed him. "You think I saw_ Heaven_?"

Sam just shrugged. "Well, we know you couldn't have actually gone upstairs…" he said, without putting too fine a point on it. They both knew that if Dean had in fact 'crossed over', there was only one place he could possibly have ended up.

"I know," Dean admitted, as Sam got up off the bed and pulled a chair away from the table so he could sit in front of his brother and start on the rest of his wounds. "Honestly… I think it was a dream, you know? Like a Heavenly hallucination or something."

Sam nodded, dipping a fresh wad of gauze into the antiseptic. "So? What was it like?" he asked, and dabbed a little too hard at the wound in the front of Dean's right shoulder. He yelped and pulled back, shooting a glare at his baby brother.

"Sorry," Sam winced, watching as fresh, red blood started to well up.

"You're damn right!" Dean complained. That was a deep one, and it was _sore_.

"Oh, come on. Like that's the worst thing that's happened to you today," Sam said drily, and placed a gauze pad over the wound and taped it gently down. "Suck it up, princess." He smiled, and pressed his lips to Dean's in a soft kiss. Dean nipped at his bottom lip, catching it briefly between his teeth.

"Some Florence Nightingale you are. Do you torture all your patients?" he quipped, getting a smile from Sam.

"Only the ones I let fuck me senseless on a regular basis."

Dean had to chuckle at that. Sam placed another kiss on his collarbone, still smiling, and Dean winced as he wiped at a particularly deep cigarette burn.

"Do you reallywant to know what I saw?" he asked, after a long moment.

"Yeah," Sam told him, eyes on the cluster of burns on the skin over Dean's left pectoral muscle. He was incredibly curious as to what was in Dean's Winchester's Heaven.

"You."

"Me?" Sam looked up, eyebrows raised. He wasn't expecting_ that_. He'd always figured it was probably full of beer, burgers and classic muscle cars draped in women of questionable morals.

Dean nodded, enjoying that look of surprise. "Yeah, just you. Your hands, your floppy frigging hair all in my face, and your lips…" Dean trailed off, remembering the warmth of Sam's skin, those kisses and soft caresses…

"I'm your Heaven," Sam said, and a smile spread slowly across his face.

"Oh God," Dean muttered, rolling his eyes. This was rapidly turning into another chick-flick moment. "Well, when you say it like _that_…"

"I love you too, Dean." Sam leaned forward for a kiss, and Dean gave it to him. He lay back on the bed and pulled Sam down to lay beside him, enjoying the way his baby brother's body moulded itself to his as he cuddled up close. If they couldn't break his deal, _this_ was the kind of thing he wanted Sam to remember.

* * *

><p><em>The end. :)<em>

_If you enjoyed it, feel free to leave a review and let me know. And click a 'share' button! ;)_


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